Movie theaters wrung a modest win out of 2025, but the bigger story is how much smaller the business still looks. Ticket sales in the US and Canada inched up 2% from the previous year to an estimated $8.9 billion, reports the New York Times. Industry analysts had expected 2025 to easily eclipse $9 billion, notes Variety, which adds context: Before the pandemic, the figure typically landed between $10 billion and $11 billion. "There's an unfortunate trend, which is that we just can't get the industry to $9 billion at the domestic box office," says Mike Sherrill, chief operating officer of the cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse. "It looks like it's going to be two years in a row that the industry flatlined."
On the bright side, the number of "habitual" moviegoers—those buying a ticket at least six times a year—grew 8%, helped by subscription programs offered by the big chains, per the Times. And some films also overperformed expectations: A new Minecraft franchise took off, Disney's Lilo & Stitch got a second life, and Sinners, F1: The Movie and Weapons cracked the Top 20, something no purely original film managed in 2024.
But the broader picture is stubbornly weak. Dramas and comedies remain largely stranded, with misfires like James L. Brooks' Ella McCay, which cost roughly $60 million to produce and market but has drawn only about $4 million domestically. The pandemic-era shift to sharply shorter theatrical windows—sometimes as little as 17 days before a film hits digital—has trained audiences to wait, especially for titles that don't rely on big-screen spectacle. Analysts say non-franchise films now need both stellar reviews (often above 80% on Rotten Tomatoes) and name recognition to move the needle. A recent example is Marty Supreme, starring Timothee Chalamet.
Even reliable brands are wobbling. Avatar: Fire and Ice led the Christmas box office with $242.1 million through Jan. 1, but that's down 24% from where Avatar: The Way of Water stood at the same point in 2023. Other series, including Jurassic World, the Marvel movies, and even SpongeBob, are also showing erosion. Some analysts now argue that theaters have effectively lost a fifth of their customer base for good—and a looming $83 billion deal that would hand Warner Bros. to Netflix, which is signaling interest in even shorter theatrical runs, could test how much further the audience is willing to shrink.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
