The Summer Box Office is Way Lower Than Expected

Even though movie theater owners might have been feeling pretty good about their summer prospects a few months ago, the actual numbers coming in might be making them a bit nervous.

Comscore reports that from May 1 to Aug. 24, domestic box office sales hit $3.53 billion. This is well short of the predicted $4 billion everyone was hoping for.

By the time the final numbers roll in after the Labor Day weekend, total ticket sales are going to be closer to $3.75 billion, which is good news — a little bit higher than last year.

Up until mid-July, tracking was still looking good, with much hope tied to the new Fantastic FourFantastic Four.

Barbie Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

That $4 billion mark has only been hit once since the pandemic, and that was in 2023. That was the year of Barbie and Oppenheimer, when we all had really high hopes for getting back into theaters en masse.

Disney's Lilo & Stitch was the big winner of the summer, raking in $421 million at domestic box offices and a stunning $1.03 billion globally.

Other movies that did well include Jurassic World Rebirth (which came close to Lilo at $844 million worldwide), How to Train Your Dragon, Superman, F1, and smaller surprise hits like Weapons and Materialists. (Sinners, one of the year’s biggest movies, fell just outside this window with an April release date.)

Both Marvel's Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four: First Steps underperformed, and Elio and M3GAN 2.0 failed to attract their intended audiences.

And while Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning made a lot of money, its $400 million budget made it a stretch to recoup its investment.

Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations, told Variety, "With only one film hitting $1 billion worldwide, it's clear Hollywood still needs some tinkering in terms of how to reengage audiences on a global level."

Now everyone's hoping the fall movies, like Tron: Ares, Mortal Kombat II, The Conjuring: Last Rites, and One Battle After Another, will give the results a much-needed boost before the big year-end blockbusters like Wicked: For Good and Zootopia 2 arrive. But as we've seen, there are no guarantees.

Having a strong slate on paper doesn't mean automatic success. The summer of 2025 tells that audiences have become incredibly selective about their theater experiences.