Superman and Fantastic Four Fail to Save 2025’s Box Office

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Around the beginning of August, I mentioned that 2025 was expected to be a year filled with box office disappointments, and it seems my prediction is coming true as industry publications are now echoing the same sentiment. “Superman” and Marvel’s “Fantastic Four” were highlighted as the main contributors to this trend.

Last Thursday, an article titled “The Summer Movie Season Is Heading South at a Rapid Pace” was published by THR.

The piece explores the expectation that the summer of 2025 would replicate the achievements of 2023, with movies like “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” contributing to its success. However, Comscore (a media assessment firm) predicts a total revenue of only $3.75 billion for 2025 summer box office, which is 8% lower than the $4 billion earned in 2023. This suggests that this year’s blockbusters didn’t manage to maintain the momentum set by their predecessors.

The Summer Tentpoles Weren’t Enough

This summer was anticipated to shine with the releases of “Jurassic World Rebirth”, James Gunn’s “Superman”, and Marvel’s “Fantastic Four”. However, only the Jurassic World film slightly surpassed expectations. It’s true that “Jurassic World Rebirth” was successful to some extent, but it fell significantly short of its predecessors, “Jurassic World” and even “Dominion”, making it the lowest-grossing movie in the franchise. Domestically, “Superman” outperformed it.

According to THR, although Superman is considered a strong contender, he has earned approximately $600 million globally (up until this past weekend). These figures are significantly lower than what pre-pandemic superhero movies could have effortlessly doubled.

Now it’s just hoped 2025 matches 2024.

The Big Hits (And That’s About It)

As I previously said:

  • Minecraft ($955M) and Lilo & Stitch ($1B) were huge.
  • Everything else? Not so much.

The movie titled “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” which isn’t particularly well-regarded, is currently performing well at the box office with earnings of approximately $829.8 million. However, it falls short by 50% compared to the original film, 36% below the second installment, and about 20% lower than “Dominion.

  • 28 Years Later flopped hard and lost $75M.
  • Snow White ($205.6M), Cap 4 ($415M), and Thunderbolts ($382M) are flops, which Disney confirmed.
  • Fantastic Four is flopping hard at $472.6M, which even THR confirms: “The Marvel movie quickly lost it groove.” That collapse helped drag the late-summer box office down 11% compared to 2023, wiping out earlier gains from Minecraft and Lilo & Stitch.
  • Elio also majorly bombed for Disney ($150.6M).
  • Ballerina bombed ($133.8M).
  • Mickey 17 bombed ($133M).
  • Karate Kid bombed ($110M).

F1, Mission Impossible, and More

The hype surrounding F1 has been immense, but at an estimated cost of $595.5M, as I anticipated, it’s proven to be a financial failure. THR attempts to spin this as a victory, highlighting Apple’s celebration of $600M, but in today’s blockbuster market, that’s barely scratching the surface of success, particularly when considering its reported break-even point of $750M. Domestically, it’s also struggling to perform well, and interestingly enough, Apple is increasing the price of Apple TV+ just before its streaming release – good luck with that!

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning? $594M. Flop.

It’s worth noting that for the first time during the peak of the pandemic, no Hollywood film managed to earn over $600 million domestically during the summer season. That’s right, not a single movie succeeded in doing so.

A Few Exceptions

As a die-hard fan, I’ve got to mention a few more titles that really stole the show alongside Minecraft, Lilo & Stitch, and Jurassic World Rebirth. There were a handful of exceptions that truly shone:

1. In the realm of adventure, Uncharted was an absolute gem!
2. For animation lovers, Inside Out had us all feeling emotions we never knew we could experience through a movie.
3. If you’re into action-packed thrillers, you simply can’t miss John Wick.
4. And for those who appreciate a good sci-fi flick, Interstellar was out of this world!

  • How to Train Your Dragon did decent ($618M worldwide) at least.
  • Final Destination: Bloodlines crushed it with $285.3M on a small budget.
  • Weapons, another low budget horror movie, is doing well, with $167.4M.

2025’s top pick for me is the gripping film “Sinners”. It was a fantastic production, earning a staggering domestic box office of $365M. Unfortunately, its international success was lackluster, with only $87.3M in earnings. The budget for this movie came in at approximately $100M.

The Bottom Line

According to Paul Dergarabedian, as stated in THR’s article, he admitted that the summer box office earnings of 2025 might equal or surpass those of 2024, but the differences are remarkably small. He expressed surprise that the industry won’t be able to outdo the $4 billion collected in 2023 by a significant margin. It seems that reaching the $4 billion mark is proving more challenging than initially anticipated. And it appears that only a blockbuster like Barbenheimer managed to achieve this milestone.

2025 is officially the year of box office bombs.

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2025-08-22 23:32