It’s a precarious time for cinema, with a string of big-budget flops in the last few months, the battle against Netflix and streaming continues, and Hollywood struggles to bring any original offerings to the table.
But after one of the worst ever first quarters, things are looking up at the domestic box office, as several successful movies help to raise the income for Q2, giving some life back to the industry.
January through to March was a disaster, with films like Mickey 17 and Snow White failing miserably and losing their respective studios hundreds of millions, while Marvel had a bad start with their first release of the year Captain America: Brave New World.
First Quarter Box Office Totals to 20191
- 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
This was the worst Q1 since 2022, so it was all to play for what would happen in the second quarter, but there was a big pick-up in box office numbers, thanks to some unexpected hits.
Second Quarter Box Office Totals to 2019
- 2025: $2.6 billion
- 2024: $1.9 billion
- 2023: $2.6 billion
- 2022: $2.3 billion
- 2021: $811 million
- 2020: $4.7 million
- 2019: $3.2 billion
Releases like A Minecraft Movie, which raked in nearly a billion worldwide, gave a total second quarter gross that’s on par with 2023, and more than half a billion more than the same period last year. This was despite the biggest release of 2024, Inside Out 2, releasing in June.
April Box Office Totals to 2019
- 2025: $875.4 million
- 2024: $430.2 million
- 2023: $899.4 million
- 2022: $571 million
- 2021: $195 million
- 2020: $52 million
- 2019: $1 billion
April was an incredibly successful month. This was largely thanks to A Minecraft Movie, that confounded early predictions to make over $400M domestically, despite a bad critical reception.
The monthly total was more than double that of 2024, though last year had few big releases in this month, the biggest being Civil War from independent studio A24, and relied mainly on holdovers like Godzilla x Kong.
May Box Office Totals to 2019
- 2025: $967.6 million
- 2024: $550.3 million
- 2023: $774 million
- 2022: $785.9 million
- 2021: $214.7 million
- 2020: $995.8 thousand
- 2019: $1 billion
May was another excellent month, giving us the best monthly gross since 2019, and over $400M more than last year. Again, this was partly due to a lack of big releases, with films like Mad Max: Furiosa and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes having mediocre results.
This year saw big hits like the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch release, which so far has made $400M domestically at the time of writing. Other big names helping to get to this total are Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and Thunderbolts*, Marvel’s second disappointment of the year.
June Box Office Totals to 2019
- 2025: $813 million
- 2024: $965.9 million
- 2023: $1 billion
- 2022: $968.9 million
- 2021: $401.2 million
- 2020: $3.6 million
- 2019: $1.1 billion
In contrast, June was not so hot, with a -15% decrease on last year’s total, or around $150M less. This could be put down to a lack of anticipated movies, though the live-action How to Train Your Dragon released this month, and Lilo & Stitch was still holding on well.
Perhaps the biggest cause of the downturn was Elio, Pixar’s only release this year, which had a disastrous time, making just $20M in its opening weekend, and just $49M2 total domestically. This is a big surprise, as normally animated films are successful, as they can draw in the big family crowds. By this point, we would usually have seen at least one animated hit, like the Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023, or Despicable Me 4 last year, but 2025 is the exception, and will no doubt have Pixar worrying about future original releases.
This month’s total also wasn’t helped by films like Ballerina, the John Wick spin-off, that had a middling reception.
January-June Box Office Totals to 2019
- 2025: $4 billion
- 2024: $3.5 billion
- 2023: $4.4 billion
- 2022: $3.6 billion
- 2021: $1 billion
- 2020: $1.7 billion3
- 2019: $5.6 billion
So how do things look for the first half of the year? Well, on the face of it, not that bad. The total is in between 2023 and 2024, at $4 billion, so pretty normal for the post-COVID average. Of course, in comparison with 2019 it does look a lot worse, with a drop of more than $1.5 billion.
As usual, the big winners were established franchises and legacy sequels. While the disaster of Snow White might have made Disney rethink their live-action remakes, the success of Lilo & Stitch will have thrown all doubts out of the window, so expect many more to come. Legacy sequels like Mission: Impossible 8 and Final Destination: Bloodlines are also in the top 10, so Hollywood is still in its IP mining era.
On the flip side of this vampire horror Sinners became the highest grossing original movie of the decade, so there’s some hope, but probably not much cause for celebration. It was a relatively cheap movie at around $90M, and more than 75% of its total gross was domestic, preventing it from becoming a mega-hit. At the same time, the disaster of Elio will be hard for Disney to swallow, and likely make them retreat further into their established franchises.
July is going to be a big test for the box office, as Jurassic World: Rebirth, Superman, and Fantastic Four: First Steps all release. This is a chance for Hollywood to bring in some serious money, but it’s also going to set the stage for cinema in the next few years, as both the MCU and the newly relaunched DCU have hugely important movies coming out, and Rebirth will decide whether there’s any life left in one of Universal’s biggest legacy franchises, that they’ve been flogging for a decade now.
This could mean that the third quarter is either a triumphant return for theatres, or a massive disappointment. We shall have to wait and see.
Read More: It’s Been A Bad First Quarter For Hollywood
- All numbers in this article come from either Box Office Mojo or The Numbers. ↩︎
- As of July 5, 2025. ↩︎
- The majority of this total is from Q1 of 2020, before COVID restrictions shut down theatres. Just $4.7M is from Q2. ↩︎
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