The Town with Matthew Belloni The 2025 Box Office Year in Review: Sydney and Timmy, Superheroes vs. Horror, and Studio Power Rankings
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Jan 7, 2026 Scott Mendelson, a box office analyst and film writer for Puck and The Outside Scoop, joins to dissect the underwhelming $8.6 billion domestic box office in 2025. They discuss how fewer wide releases and franchise fatigue dampened audience excitement. Scott highlights the breakout success of "Chainsaw Man" while critiquing Disney's mixed performance. They also evaluate superhero films' declining influence and name "Tron Ares" as the year's biggest flop. Ultimately, Scott urges studios to creatively subvert known IP for future success.
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Domestic Box Office Shortfall
- Domestic box office dropped to about $8.6 billion in 2025, well below pre-COVID highs of $10–11 billion.
- Fewer wide studio releases and weak audience interest in many event movies are key causes.
Too Few Movies, Too Many Stale Events
- Scott Mendelson cites too few regular releases and an oversupply of stale "event" tentpoles as structural problems.
- Many franchise remakes feel irrelevant and fail to excite already uninterested audiences.
Portfolio Masking At Disney
- Disney reached roughly $6 billion largely because a few huge hits (Zootopia 2, Lilo & Stitch, Avatar 3) masked multiple underperformers.
- A portfolio strategy can hide many individual movie failures.
