As is my tradition, I'm going to break down five major takeaways from the movie world in 2025.
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2025 was an interesting year for the movies with a bunch of unexpected hits, blatant misfires and more industry nonsense rearing its ugly head. So as is my tradition, I'm going to break down five major takeaways from the movie year. Whether or not anyone actually learns these lessons remains to be seen, but I am not optimistic.
Lesson #1: We Have A Movie Press Problem
Like any entertainment industry, the movie industry relies very heavily on promotion to drum up enthusiasm for any upcoming films, give people funs bits of trivia they can share with their friends and generally give folks insight into the people that make some of our most engaging art.
This year the movie press continued down an unfortunate path which was shamelessly shilling for movie studio management. Variety in particular has been pretty egregious with a constant stream of stories about how far away a movie released a week ago was from making back its budget. Case in point, I've encountered at least one or two people who thought of the years biggest movies, Sinners, wasn't financially successful because of these stories.
Which begs the question, why are they doing this?
Why kill enthusiasm for critically acclaimed movies like One Battle After Another by comparing its box office haul vs. its budget over and over again?
My theory: the suits don't want to greenlight any IP they don't already own. So if a movie you wouldn't expect to light the world on fire that got made anyways like Mickey 17 or Sinners, you make sure everyone knows exactly how much money you gave them to make the movie so you can't be blamed for not supporting original ideas moving forward and can justify your seventh sequel of another franchise because it's "good business."
It's been pointed out by plenty of folks that the people that fund and make movies typically hate that they have to work with artists and don't want to put money behind big new ideas they can't guarantee a payout on.
Which is both short-sighted and I've said and will continue to say, kills the viability of your catalog moving forward when they're all sequels and remakes. Who is going to watch the live-action How To Train Your Dragon more than once? Or the live-action Lilo & Stitch.
Meanwhile, Netflix shows up with a brand new animated movie that took the world by storm this year, to the tune of Golden Globe and likely Grammy and Oscar nominations in the near future with K Pop Demon Hunters (more on Netflix later).
Done right movie press can inform the masses and get folks to a theater. But right now all they're doing is justifying business decisions and staying home.
Lesson #2: A Tipping Point for Netflix
The flaws in Netflix's business model are at their most obvious when they succeed. Because as much as I'm sure Netflix has been hoping for a Frozen level hit, they were clearly not ready for the pop culture juggernaut of K Pop Demon Hunters.
The Frozen comparison was chosen intentionally because something Disney heads might remember is that when that movie originally came out, almost all of the promotion and toys were focused on Olaf the Snowman. When what the kiddos really wanted was Elsa.
So here comes Netflix with arguably the biggest movie of the year, with a soundtrack that it's the top 10 most listened albums of the year, and...almost no ways to truly capitalize on it.
No merchandise and no theatrical distribution.
It was so popular that it more or less forced Netflix hand to hold "Sing Along" events for fans in theater..that made $23 million. That makes it the 65th highest grossing movie of the year.
It was in theaters for five days.
Combined with very public feuds with some of their biggest creators who have given them gems to rack up awards and hang their hats on like Guillermo del Toro advocating for Frankenstein and Rian Johnson telling anyone within earshot to yell at Netflix to get the latest Knives Out movie into more theaters, and Netflix might be at a point where it either has to incorporate broad theatrical releases into its business model, see promising projects go or worse, at least for them, eventually see their profits decimated.
Lesson #3: Anime Has Broken Containment
The past five years I've spoken about how foreign films and anime have been nipping at the margins of the U.S. movie market. A Dragon Ball Z movie there. A better performance than expected from a Jujutsu Kaisen flick. Godzilla: Minus One making a nice chunk of change at the box office.
And then Demon Slayer kicked the god damn doors in, not only opening to a whopping $70 million in its opening weekend, but also being the first anime movie to break the $100 million threshold, the first to get nominated for a Golden Globe, and it could be in line for an Oscar nomination as well.
It's since been followed by more tepid, but still no less impressive debuts from a Chainsaw Man film that made more than Edgar Wright's Running Man and The Monkey and even a $10 million debut from a Jutjutsu Kaisen clip show/preview.
In my Demon Slayer review I hypothesized that anime was starting to become go-to teen entertainment, and while that may be true, as arguments between the youths at my local gym indicate, this also demonstrates how ubiquitous anime has started to become in American culture now that it's available on so many streaming services and not seen as a niche genre/format.
Very excited to see what the next few years hold for this animation subgenre.
Lesson #4: Horror Hits Big
2024 was a pretty good year for horror with cult hits like the Terrifier franchise breaking into the top 40 movies at the box office, while movies with horror adjacent themes like A Quiet Place: Day One and Alien Romlus were in an around the Top 20.
But recession indicator or not, horror cemented its importance in the pop culture lexicon this year, with four horror movies, including Sinners, bringing in over $100 million at the box office (Five Nights at Freddy's could make it five) and four more sliding their way into the Top 40.
This was also the genre that demonstrated a great affection for both original ideas and spins on familiar ones in almost equal measure with Zach Cregger's Weapons and Final Destination: Bloodlines making similar amounts of money.
But the biggest note is that this is a genre that will get adults into theaters, whether it's an action-packed period musical like Sinners or simply a sequel to solid original film like Black Phone 2.
This is also the year that Shudder, the horror streaming provider, celebrated its ten year anniversary, making it one of the few niche streaming services without an extensive self-owned back catalog to truly stick around with another solid year of originals including the best V/H/S film in years and even getting sequels made for movies like Influencer.
Long story short, the once niche genre is more popular than ever and shows no signs of slowing down.
Lesson #5: Can We Get More Original Movies Please?
2025 was a lot like 2024 in that almost all of the biggest movies at the box office were sequels, reboots, or re-imaginings of existing intellectual property. And while I enjoyed plenty of them including Superman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, this doesn't feel sustainable for forever. Not only that there is a clear hunger for original or new stories as demonstrated by smash hits like Sinners, Weapons and the biggest box office haul of Paul Thomas Anderson's career for One Battle After Another (that will likely increase once Oscar nods come around).
But more than just the repetition of the same characters or same kind of movies over and over again, it's also shifted how we talk about movies. Now we can't just enjoy Sinners as a one-off bit of greatness. Instead we have to talk about the possibility of a sequel because it was successful and therefore must have a sequel. Sidenote, I bet you anything this is a big part of why Ryan Coogler made the very stringent rights deal he did with Warner Bros. I wouldn't want it to become yet another franchise Warner Bros. cashed in whenever they wanted, especially when it's my original story.
While there's a lot of factors that would prevent folks from going to the movies nowadays, it's very telling that almost all of the money studios are spending to make and promote movies
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