2025 was an interesting year in film, and nothing shows that like the Top Ten Highest Grossing Films of the Year. What can these movies tell us about where the world of film is at presently and where it will be going in the future? Let’s take a look.
Let’s start by sharing the Top Ten Domestic Grossers:
What does this list have to say?
1. ZOOTOPIA 2 and LILO & STITCH making $1 billion worldwide will reinforce the bad idea that every movie could be a billion-dollar movie.
One of the most dangerous things in Hollywood today is the fact that many studios think their IP is an automatic candidate for a $1 billion worldwide gross. This year, we had two films to cross that plateau-Zootopia 2 and Lilo and Stitch. Minecraft came close, and Avatar: Fire and Ash will surely make well more than that before it leaves theaters, but it’s not quite there yet.
That’s two out of over 200 films released in 2025. That’s less than 1% of all the films released. Would you jump off a cliff if you only had 1% of survival? Would you ask that girl or guy out on a date if you knew you had the same odds? I know I wouldn’t
But Hollywood will use these two films as an excuse to throw good money after bad at movies that might make money but will never hit $1 billion. And when the film doesn’t reach that plateau, it is deemed a “disappointment” or an outright flop. It’s a dangerous philosophy to have, but the studios keep following it.
2. MINECRAFT shows there is money in video game adaptations, but only if they are BIG games.
Minecraft caught a lot of people by surprise, but, in retrospect, it shouldn’t have. Minecraft is huge! It has permeated into pop culture unlike any video game that came before it. You can find toys and t-shirts based on it, and it has infected social media as well.
But I don’t have faith that Hollywood will pick up on that and simply think that any video game film can make major bank. Last year’s Borderlands film should prove otherwise, but do you think Hollywood executive can remember back that far?
Fortnite is the only video game that I know of that has the reach of Minecraft, and there is no film in development for it. Yet, we are getting another pass at a Street Fighter film. Expect a lot of Hollywood executives going to the trades to complain when that film doesn’t do Minecraft numbers.
3. SUPERMAN proves that the Snyderverse is dead, dead, dead and the Snyder Bros need to get over it.
From the time the first frame of the first reel unspooled at a theater, the Snyder Bros were trying to assassinate James Gunn’s Superman. They brought up weekly grosses for it and Man of Steel, showing how the latter was superior when adjusted for inflation. They’d share any bad reviews that came along. They’d post long-winded videos explaining how Man of Steel was a better film and how Zack Snyder was the better director. They tried to kill the new film in any way they could.
They failed. Look above. Superman is the number three domestic film of the year. And while I’m sure Warners expected the film to become a member of the $1 billion club, which it didn’t, but it still was a success. And enough of one that Warners is willing to let Gunn continue on with his vision.
So, now it is the time for all the Snyder Bros to lay down their arms and give up the ghost. The Snyderverse is not coming back. Stop trying to make that particular version of “fetch” happen. Dedicate that passion to feeding the hungry or housing the poor, where it might do better. Dream another dream, because that dream is over.
4. LILO & STITCH and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON prove that the live action adaptations of animated films are not dead.
When Snow White debuted early in 2025 and promptly bombed, people thought Disney would now be forced to stop making live action adaptations of their animated classics. However, there were more of these adaptations already on the release schedule, not only by Disney but also by Dreamworks, Unfortunately, both Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon were hits, and the haters would have to wait a bit longer for this sub-genre to die.
Of course, there are so many other reasons for Snow White’s failure than genre fatigue, including, but not limited to, Rachel Ziegler’s self-immolation on the film’s press tour and the whole world, all of a sudden, all at once, discovering that Gal Gadot wasn’t a good actress with this film. But there were signs the popularity of the remakes were wavering. Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon put that to rest once and for all.
And considering that How to Train Your Dragon was one of the first adaptations of a CGI animated film, we have a whole new stock of films for Hollywood to adapt into live action. This trend might not end for a long time.
5. The success of ZOOTOPIA 2 (and the failure of ELIO) might mean Disney and Pixar might become sequel farms.
Pixar was once the bastion of originality in animation. Every release featured inventive concepts and memorable characters. It appeared that they could do no wrong. When Disney bought Pixar and brought them into the company, the Mouse House’s in-house animated output such as Big Hero 6 and Frozen became films of comparable quality and grosses to Pixar’s slate of films.
Then the pandemic happened, and the magic disappeared. Not every original Pixar or Disney CGI animated film was a hit. Many still scored well with critics, but most fell cold at the box office.
That is, except for their sequels. Moana 2, Inside Out 2 and this year’s Zootopia 2 all made over a billion dollars. You could not blame Disney and Pixar if they decided to put out nothing but sequels from now on. But that would be a shame because some of my most favorite films of the last 20 odd years have been their original fare.
6. AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH shows the scary, inexplicable popularity of the franchise, and that James Cameron will be tied up with it for a while.
Avatar: Fire and Ash was released on December 19th. That was just around three weeks ago. And it has already made enough money to earn a spot on the top ten highest grossing list for the year. That is scary.
Sure, haters will point out that this sequel opened less than any other installment, but so what? So what if only grosses $1.2 billion instead of $1.3 billion? It will still make its exorbitant budget back and then some.
This means that James Cameron, one of the most interesting directors working today, will be working on Avatar films–and nothing but Avatar films–for the foreseeable future. I have to admit; I’d rather he be freed up to do other films. I never warmed to Avatar, never saw the last installment, and am in no hurry to see this one. But I am in the minority. Cameron is making money hand over fist with this franchise, and a fourth and fifth installment is already planned and scripted. It’s not likely we’ll get another non-Avatar film from him in his lifetime.
7. SINNERS proves that there is room for originality–and horror–in the Top Ten, but only if it is well done.
Whenever a film with an original concept fails at the box office, cynics typically say “Look, you say you want originality, but you don’t go to theaters to see it!” What they fail to mention is that the original film they were talking about was either dreck or made by hacks or poorly promoted or any combination of the above. Good original films can find a place in the market today. Sinners is proof of that,
If you said at the beginning of the year if Sinners would make a profit, let alone be a Top Ten Grosser, you’d be laughed at. But Ryan Coogler’s film became the talk of the summer, wowed audiences and critics, and hopefully will be recognized around Oscar time.
It might not be. It is a horror film after all. We appear to be in a Golden Age of intelligent horror, with films such as Sinners, Weapons, Heretic and Bring Her Back leading the way. Hopefully, the success of Sinners will lead to more films that scare us with story instead of slashing, and maybe force the Academy to come to realize that there is quality work in the genre,
8. JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH shows that people love humans being threatened by CGI dinosaurs, no matter what the critics have to say.
When the first Jurassic Park was released in 1993, it was so far ahead of its time I’m not sure we have caught up with it yet. The film mixed animatronic puppets and bleeding edge CGI technology to create dinosaurs so realistic that you’d think you went back in time. It then put those dinosaurs into a film where they could wreak the most havoc possible. It was a good, self-contained film, but not one that you’d expect to get a sequel, let alone a franchise that is still running 33 years later.
Yet here we are.
And there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight. This film, which is a soft reboot that takes the franchise in new direction, received a lukewarm reception from the critics. It looked like the franchise might finally be over. But it wasn’t. While it wasn’t highest grossing film in the series, it made enough to have a pretty good profit. We should be seeing dinosaurs chasing A-list actors for years to come.
9. SUPERMAN and FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS show that the comic book film is not dead but isn’t the force it once was either.
I wrote about these films in my “State of the Comic Book Film” article a number of days ago, but I also have to talk about them here.
Both of these films were moderate successes. Nothing wrong with that. A lot of studios would like all of their films to be moderate successes. But these were comic book films. They were expected to run roughshod through the box office and end up as billion-dollar babies. After all, they were reboots of two legendary comic book properties that fans were clamoring to finally be done right. Anticipation was high, reviews were good and marketing was all over the place. Yet the best these films could do is $616 million and $521 million at the worldwide box office, respectively.
I think it’s time for fans and more importantly studios to realize that comic book films are no longer the 800-lb gorilla of the movie world. Years of substandard stories, failed franchises, and creative misfires have poisoned the pool for the genre. There is still and audience, but not one as massive as it once was.
How studios proceed from here will determine the survival of the comic book film. The best path would be keeping the costs low and the quality high. Warners/DC seem to be going this route. James Gunn’s DCU seems to be very character focused and trying to tell good stories with their characters, using up-and-coming talent to bring the heroes to life. Marvel Studios is going full bombast. Robert Downey Jr is back! So is Chris Evans! Look, the X-Men! Forget every Marvel film since 2019, we are doing a sequel to Avengers: Endgame! DC’s plans seem like…well…a plan. Marvel Studios’ plan seems like an act of rank desperation to vainly recapture the magic from the last time they were on top. We’ll have to see how this all works out of them.
10. WICKED: FOR GOOD will have Hollywood looking for the next big Broadway musical to adapt–and they might not find one.
Universal Studios had a pretty big success with Wicked and Wicked: For Good. Both films landed in the Top Ten Highest Grossing Films (Wicked was the #3 film last year) all for a combined $300 million budget as they were filmed at the same time.
The one universal truth in Hollywood is that nothing sells like success. I’m sure executives all over Tinseltown are having their executive assistants scouring the Broadway listings to try to find the next big hit. They might come back empty.
There isn’t really another musical currently running on Broadway that matches Wicked for longevity, popularity and spectacle. The Book of Mormon has become a Broadway staple but can’t match Wicked for audience accessibility or spectacle. Hamilton might be another choice, but a telecast of the Broadway performance was already in theaters, The rest of the musicals currently running on Broadway have either already been adapted into film, have been adapted FROM films, or are properties that are relatively new and might not be ready for the film adaptation treatment, Will we get another big movie musical? Who knows.
