THB #730: The BIG Movies '25/'26

Rolling along through the summer, I heard a factoid out there that inspired me to look at the next 17.5 months at movies theaters.

The factoid is that after Fantastic Four launches next week, it will be 11 full months before we see a new major comic book movie in theaters.

For all the whining about how comic books movie at the entire movie business, there are only 4 such films in 2025. After 2 Marvel disappointments (Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*) unable to get even to $450m ww each, we have a hit in Superman and 1 more comic book movie to go this year/month with the expectation that The Fantastic Four, will also do well over $500 million.

The madness of 2023 saw 8 theatrical comic book movies in 1 year, which we have never seen before and will likely never see again. Of those 8 titles, only 2 managed more than $500 million worldwide.

2024 had 4 comic book movies, with only 1 hit.

Supergirl

And there are actually 4 comic book films on the schedule for next year… 2 from Marvel and 2 from DC. And the only 1 you could really call “easy” is Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The last 2 Tom Holland Spider-Mans did over $1 billion worldwide. Marvel’s other entry is Avengers: Doomsday, which is going to have to earn its place… which is not to say it can’t, but it’s no lock. On the DC side, Supergirl, which gets a killer tease in Superman and Clayface, which is being positioned as a different kind of entry, not expected to do the highest level of business.

Avengers: Doomsday is in The Disney Christmas slot, which will be filled this year by Avatar 3, and is expected to be a 2-parter over 2 Christmases.

That brings us to 2027, with 2 titles currently scheduled late in the year - no summer comic book movies - with The Batman 2 in October and Avengers: Secret Wars in December. In theory, this could change, as every comic-book movie is not necessarily a more than 2-year slog.

Putting those comic book movies aside, let’s take a look at the other big movies (serious $100 million+ worldwide ambitions).

Let’s start with where we are this year…

We’ve had 23 “Hollywood” movies to date this year that have legitimately been aiming at $100 million (and more) worldwide. Only 3 have failed to make that mark. The biggest disappointment is M2GAN 2.0, the first of which did $180 million ww, with this year’s sequel at $37 million, which will grow a bit more, but will not get close to $100 million. Then there is A Working Man, which is not a sequel to The Beekeeper ($163 million), but was Ayer and Statham again, and only did $88m ww. And the third is The Amateur, which is an original Fox production under Disney doing $96m against a $60m budget.

There are plenty of $100m grossers that would be considered financial disappointments, from the 2 Marvel titles to Elio and Ballerina and Karate Kid: Legends… but $100m ww grossers they are.

And now, the rest of 2025…

July
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (reboot)

August
The Naked Gun (reboot, avg. old series, $72m dom)
The Bad Guys 2 (last one, $250m ww)
Freakier Friday (last one, $161m ww)

Tron: Ares

October
Tron: Ares (last one, $400m)
The Black Phone 2 (last one, $161m ww)
Mortal Kombat II (last one, $84m, day-n-date COVID)

November
Predator: Badlands (last one, $161m ww)
The Running Man (reboot, last one, 1987, $38m dom only)
Wicked For Good (last one, $756m ww)
Zootopia 2 (last one, $1 billion ww)

December
Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 (last one, $291 ww)
Avatar: Fire & Ash (last one, $2.3 billion ww)
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants (last theatrical, $325m ww)
Anaconda (reboot, last one, $137m ww)

The list for 2025 is 38 wannabe “Big Titles” deep, 6 of them originals. Of course, the levels of ambition vary. After Fantastic Four, there is not a film really aiming at more than $600 million until the end of November, more than 3 months away.

And as we look into 2026, we find 36 wannabe “Big Titles” - 13 of them originals. That’s an unusual amount of originals being relied upon. Unlike many writers, as much as I embrace originals, in a discussion of box office, the primary issue is that there are a step more difficult to market. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a market for these films with the potential of break-out cash cows.

Only 3 Straight Comedies on the schedule for the entire year. This remains, simply, stupid. All 3 of the comedies are new epsidoes of old films, Practical Magic (1998), Scary Movie (2000), and The Devil Wears Prada (2006). Major Studio Fail.

The Bride

Here is the line-up…