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We’re only three months into 2025, and already things aren’t looking good for Hollywood, as they record a disappointing first quarter, despite their best efforts.

Compared with the post-Covid average, things don’t look all that bad. It’s down some $200 million on last year, but still sits higher than 2022. But the real unpleasant data is in the details,

First quarter box office totals to 2019

• 2025: $1.41 billion
• 2024: $1.6 billion
• 2023: $1.72 billion
• 2022: $1.34 billion
• 2021: $236.4 million
• 2020: $1.78 billion
• 2019: $2.4 billion

The January box office was actually very strong, with a $50 million lead on 2024, this was helped by holdovers like Mufasa: The Lion King, which has a long tail despite a slow start, and bulked up by things like Moana 2 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 which took advantage of the quiet post-Christmas period to do some good numbers.

January box office totals to 2019

• 2025: $545.2 million
• 2024: $495.8 million
• 2023: $584.7 million
• 2022: $389.7 million
• 2021: $65.1 million
• 2020: $897.7 million
• 2019: $812.8 million

February was also strong. Much higher than last year, and comparable to 2023.

February box office totals to 2019

• 2025: $480.8 million
• 2024: $364 million
• 2023: $499.5 million
• 2022: $365.8 million
• 2021: $57.7 million
• 2020: $638 million
• 2019: $624.4 million

This was helped by the release of Captain America: Brave New World, which has been a letdown overall, but is still the highest-grossing release domestically this year ($193M domestic, $405M worldwide). 2023 has a comparable release with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but the real reason last year’s was so low is that there was no major release of this scale. The biggest was Bob Marley biopic One Love, which ended with just $96 million.

So far, so good then, but the really bad numbers come in March, which is usually when studios start to put out bigger releases, and the box office picks up as we leave Christmas behind. That’s not the case for 2025, though.

March box office totals to 2019

• 2025: $386.6 million
• 2024: $749.3 million
• 2023: $638.1 million
• 2022: $589.3 million
• 2021: $113.5 million
• 2020: $253.3 million
• 2019: $962.7 million

As you can see, the numbers are pretty bad. Barely half of last year’s total, and well under the three year post-Covid average. This is a bad start for Hollywood, and not one that can be just brushed under the carpet. Compared to the last few years, this March was an average for number and scale of releases.

2022 had The Batman and 2023 saw Creed III and John Wick: Chapter 4 released, while last year has a boost from some big titles like Dune: Part Two, Kung Fu Panda 4, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which all made over $500 million. But while that might have been a particularly good year, it doesn’t excuse the poor performance from 2025.

This month has seen two massive movies hit theatres, in Mickey 17 and Snow White. Both have these have bombed. At the time of writing, Mickey 17 has a total of $43 million, while Snow White is sitting at $66 million after a terrible second weekend.

These are dismal results for what should be top-performing movies, even if the films themselves weren’t that good (and they weren’t). The last live-action Disney remake brought in over $700 million, and Mickey 17 has a budget of more than $100 million, giving some indication of what hopes Warner Bros. has for it.

It doesn’t look like their problems will be ending either, as there are few big releases in April. The most notable is A Minecraft Movie, which is based on the massive video game IP, but so far has low box office expectations and a mixed reception from fans to the trailers. So it’s unlikely there will be any big hits until May, when Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning arrive, and offer some hope for a better turnover.

Even with those arrivals, this is still terrible news for Hollywood and the movie industry. With inflation over the last few years, these numbers are actually worse than they seem, and are still well below the pre-2020 average. At the same time, sequels and legacy IP aren’t guaranteed hits, but it’s really all that Hollywood has for the rest of the year, and if they can’t find a way to entice audiences back to theatres, then things will only get worse in 2025.

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