The State of the Box Office 2025 in its First Week
With the first full week of the 2025 Box Office behind us, what can we anticipate for the year ahead? Brandon Blake, our industry insider entertainment attorney from Blake & Wang P.A., unpacks the facts and figures.
A Normal Year Ahead?
2024 has been earmarked as one of the first “Normal Years” we’ve seen since the opening of the 2020s. With no surprises (yet) from pandemics, lockdowns, or strike action, most of the industry is predicting a year with normal production pipelines and a generally steady release environment. However, we will still feel a few ripples from the protracted dual strikes of 2023.
So far, so good. The weekend’s box office total is currently estimated at $105.5M across all movies. That’s a 23% improvement on the same weekend last year. That's not bad for a week where there was no major wide release to tempt viewers and where the weight was mostly taken by holiday carryovers deep into their release windows.
Looking Ahead
This also makes 2025 the second-best opening week of the post-COVID era— and it is a close race, indeed. 2023 saw M3GAN and Avatar: The Way With Water power up takings of $106.2M, both fresher releases than the 2024-2025 slate as well.
While that still places us behind the first weekends of the pre-COVID era, it may be time to stop using those figures as an essential benchmark. Not only has the entertainment landscape seen a massive shift in how titles are released, but we’ve also seen the streaming boom completely change how people approach and consume movies. As 2023 and 2024 have now aptly demonstrated, strong box office performances in the post-pandemic era are certainly achievable, with the right slates and some smart marketing for added spice.
It’s certainly some great news to start the year with. Here’s hoping we will see even better box office performances as the year gets underway fully.
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