The box office is still trying to recover from COVID-19 and the dual strikes of 2023, but it’s looking like 2025 still won’t do it.
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According to a new report from ComScore, 110 films will open in 2025 on 2,000 or more screens – the threshold to be considered a wide release. This compares with the 82 titles we saw in 2024, a reduced number due to the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild strikes of 2023.
These films are estimated to lead the charge to a $9B total for the year, a climb of $300M over the approximate $8.7B theatrical releases took in during 2024.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film industry hit approximately $11B in 2019. A reluctance among moviegoers to return to theaters has been blamed by many, and that doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon. Deadline reports that a recent study by Quorum saw the needle move from 45.9% to 46.2% in 2024 as to how many people were likely to see a film in the theater instead of in the theater.
Increasingly, movie viewing as happening at home, and not just on streaming services, but via PVOD (Premium Video On Demand). The theatrical release is feeling more and more like a way to get people interested in the eventual home release, and that is something the theaters are going to push back on increasingly.
2024 was estimated to land between $7.5B to $8B, so it did come in above expectations. Hopefully, 2025 will be able to have a similarly surprising end.
IMAGE SOURCE: Shutterstock – Movie Theater – Empty – Fusionstudio
