Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs

[Disney Irish]

Or…Chicken Little.

lol, well if we’re going based on the Disney version he proved to be right in the end and he became the town hero and they celebrated him.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Summer Box Office 2025 Admissions +1M To 275M, Disney Wins At $1B, Warner Bros Surges. But Why Isn’t Anyone Excited?

Disney led the $3.67 billion summer domestic box office with $1 billion as admissions jumped to 275 million.

deadline.com

 

[Phroobar]

Summer Box Office 2025 Admissions +1M To 275M, Disney Wins At $1B, Warner Bros Surges. But Why Isn’t Anyone Excited?

Disney led the $3.67 billion summer domestic box office with $1 billion as admissions jumped to 275 million.

deadline.com

Disney, with 20th Century Studios and Searchlight, led the seasonal heat wave, in what is no surprise, with $1.02 billion, buoyed by Lilo & Stitch ($423.3M, the second highest-grossing movie YTD), The Fantastic Four: First Steps ($266.1M domestic) and the ho-hum Thunderbolts ($190.2M). But the Mouse House is down 32% from a year ago (blame Elio, plus Freakier Friday has become quite sluggish in falling short of the century mark), which saw $1.5 billion (again, $1.2 billion of that being Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2).

 

[BlindChow]

Gee, I wonder by who?

I'm sure it's someone who will freely admit to being wrong when there's evidence to the contrary! Not someone who will double down on his obviously premature conclusion! Not someone who will wait until a single horror movie does poorly and then declare vindication!

...right?

 

[Disney Irish]

I'm sure it's someone who will freely admit to being wrong when there's evidence to the contrary! Not someone who will double down on his obviously premature conclusion! Not someone who will wait until a single horror movie does poorly and then declare vindication!

...right?

You mean like almost everyone here with every topic.

Look if I'm wrong I'm wrong. But the trend for the entire year so far doesn't seem to line up with me being wrong at this point. We've had what like 3 maybe 4 horror movies that have done well (only 1 remains in the top 10 domestic), a few that did so so, and the rest did poorly. If this was any other genre, especially superhero, people would be pointing to fatigue "audience tastes shifting".

So I don't know people are so ready to talk about fatigue "audience tastes shifting" with every other genre, but when it comes to horror people just don't want to see it or talk about it.

I'm sure if it was Disney everyone would be coming out of the woodwork to talk about it calling for someones head and for things to change. Oh well, maybe some will be ready to talk about it at the end of the year.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Yes and I still believe it whether you guys don’t or not doesn’t matter to me. A few movies doing well in this landscape doesn’t prove that audience tastes haven’t shifted away (fatigue) from the genre overall. As there is still more that failed this year than were successes.

Just wanted to add I was not saying you were wrong. I genuinely could not remember who was discussing, but thought it was odd this film was doing so well given the trends you’ve pointed out. Likely a few outliers for the year.

 

[Disney Irish]

Just wanted to add I was not saying you were wrong. I genuinely could not remember who was discussing, but thought it was odd this film was doing so well given the trends you’ve pointed out. Likely a few outliers for the year.

No doubt there have been a few successes, not here trying to take their flowers away. Have just been pointing out the trend as you said. We'll see how the rest of the year goes, few more releases left.

 

[Nevermore525]

Does Badlands become the first Predator film to break $200M worldwide?

Highest grossing to include Predator is AVP at $172.5M

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Quite the groupthink tank bubbling up in here this week….

Everyone gets points on their elite fanclub membership

 

[DisneyWarrior27]

Well when you come from a family with almost $300B and the son of the second wealthiest person in the world you can do that.

The amount of money that David Ellison is throwing around at Paramount is insane.

Let’s hope he uses that money to make sure The Legend Of Aang: The Last Airbender is a box office smash over Columbus Day Weekend next year so it can make Hollywood studios, even Disney, consider going back to hand-drawn animated movies for theaters.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Summer Box Office 2025 Admissions +1M To 275M, Disney Wins At $1B, Warner Bros Surges. But Why Isn’t Anyone Excited?

Disney led the $3.67 billion summer domestic box office with $1 billion as admissions jumped to 275 million.

deadline.com

For those who roll their eyes at post-theatrical income...

Paramount with Tom Cruise’s franchise finale Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and the reboot of Naked Gun ($51.3M), stands at $279M, up 12% from last summer. While the media would like to write the loss obituary on Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning, for the studio brass, the approximate $350M production was never about first-cycle profit gain, rather long-term franchise gain as the Mission: Impossible movies are enormous perennial cash cows in their library revenue generation.​

 

[Baloo124]

Some people don’t like the “fatigue” word. So maybe I’ll start using “audience tastes have shifted” instead. Maybe that’ll go over easier and be more accepted.

Is it just theatrical you are referring to?
Reason I'm asking is, when it comes to horror, I consider myself a fan of that genre
-This time of year, Sep/Oct Halloween season.
-At home

The scares just wouldn't work (imo) in a packed theater setting. Even a small theater audience, it just wouldn't pull off the same effect as at home.

I wonder if there are more like me and the genre is more popular than theatrical numbers suggest.

 

[Disney Irish]

Is it just theatrical you are referring to?
Reason I'm asking is, when it comes to horror, I consider myself a fan of that genre
-This time of year, Sep/Oct Halloween season.
-At home

The scares just wouldn't work (imo) in a packed theater setting. Even a small theater audience, it just wouldn't pull off the same effect as at home.

I wonder if there are more like me and the genre is more popular than theatrical numbers suggest.

I'm referring to just theatrical. I'm sure there are quite a few fans out there that just don't go to the theater.

 

[Disney Analyst]

WB should enjoy it while they are #1, won’t last through the year.

 

[TP2000]

Freakier Friday has already outgrossed Elio and is now just $5 million away from besting Snow White at the domestic box office

Who predicted that at the start of the year?

Definitely not the Burbank execs who greenlit spending $270 Million to produce Rachel Zegler's Snow White or the $200 Million to produce Elio. They lost hundreds of millions of dollars on those two '25 bombs combined.

Here's the first pass box office for this weekend as Burbank licks its wounds at the end of summer, before I head out on my overseas autumnal travels. I won't be posting here much the next month or so, unless something big breaks and I decide to log onto the ship's WiFi from the Torshavn lounge. I'm sure you'll all survive without me and the hard data.

The Roses dropped a big 55% its second weekend out, and Disney released a limited run of Hamilton? Who knew?!?

Onward to the $200 Million-ish spent to produce Tron: Ares and the Halloween costume season! Enjoy the autumn, gang!

The Numbers - Weekend Box Office Chart for September 5, 2025

Weekend Domestic Box Office Chart for the weekend of September 5, 2025

thenumbers.com

 

[Tha Realest]

I don’t care, I’ll be the canary in the coal mine here trying to warn people about the situation. If people don’t want to believe it’s fine by me.

Some people don’t like the “fatigue” word. So maybe I’ll start using “audience tastes have shifted” instead. Maybe that’ll go over easier and be more accepted.

I’m sorry, but changing one word to a passive phrase doesn’t mean you didn’t completely misread the room on the state of horror. Audiences have shifted more towards the genre, not less, which is the opposite of how your original framing suggested.

Horror box office blows past $1 billion for 2025 as 'The Conjuring: Last Rites' takes in third-largest domestic opening ever

The sequel's $83 million domestic haul was the third-highest for a horror movie. It was the largest horror opening internationally, with $104 million.

fortune.com

 

[BlindChow]

So I don't know people are so ready to talk about fatigue "audience tastes shifting" with every other genre, but when it comes to horror people just don't want to see it or talk about it.

I've never mentioned fatigue or shifting tastes at all.

Just making a joke on how predictable some people here are when it comes to having to admit they might be wrong on the internet. (Whataboutism is a pretty standard response, however...)

Anyway, in my opinion, it all depends the individual film, and trying to diagnose "trends" based on something as broad as an entire genre is silly. There was even someone here trying to claim there was "action fatigue"! Can you imagine? "People just aren't interested in seeing movies with action anymore!"

 

[easyrowrdw]

I’m sorry, but changing one word to a passive phrase doesn’t mean you didn’t completely misread the room on the state of horror. Audiences have shifted more towards the genre, not less, which is the opposite of how your original framing suggested.

Horror box office blows past $1 billion for 2025 as 'The Conjuring: Last Rites' takes in third-largest domestic opening ever

The sequel's $83 million domestic haul was the third-highest for a horror movie. It was the largest horror opening internationally, with $104 million.

fortune.com

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return to the big screen in the ninth installment of “The Conjuring” as the paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren who attempt to vanquish a demon from a family’s home.

There have been 9 of these movies?! If you'd asked me to guess I probably would've said 3 lol The 9th movie in the series making this much money is incredible.

 

[BlindChow]

The scares just wouldn't work (imo) in a packed theater setting. Even a small theater audience, it just wouldn't pull off the same effect as at home.

I wonder if there are more like me and the genre is more popular than theatrical numbers suggest.

You are not alone! I think this has actually been a thing for a long time. There have been a number of horror films that didn't light up the box office yet became "cult" hits on home video, later resulting in sequels.

I assume this is part of the genre's appeal to the studios who make these films (that and their (relatively) low budgets).

 

[LSLS]

I’m sorry, but changing one word to a passive phrase doesn’t mean you didn’t completely misread the room on the state of horror. Audiences have shifted more towards the genre, not less, which is the opposite of how your original framing suggested.

Horror box office blows past $1 billion for 2025 as 'The Conjuring: Last Rites' takes in third-largest domestic opening ever

The sequel's $83 million domestic haul was the third-highest for a horror movie. It was the largest horror opening internationally, with $104 million.

fortune.com

So, honest question I don't know the answer to. Are audiences shifting towards horror, or are horror fans just a lot more committed to their genre than the average movie goer? Basically, are the number of people into the genre increasing, or is it just that the cost is not a deterrent in this genre like others?

Sort of related, but I wonder how the cost to go to say a horror or Rated R movie compares to that of a family. I know families push towards $100 or more for one movie. But if you don't have the kids, beyond just less tickets to buy, I wonder if the concessions also take a big hit (maybe adults are less likely to buy a drink or candy), so the budget is significantly lower for someone to go see one of those.