Going into the Labor Day holiday weekend, industry watchers took account of the Summer 2025 box office. Overall, moviegoers forked out $3.67 billion for theatrical screenings, which was about the same as Summer 2024. However, the failure to reach optimistic predictions (like Gower Street’s augur of a post-pandemic record season of $4.2 billion) have led to disappointment in industry coverage over these sunny days. The movie biz has yet to return to pre-COVID numbers, when summers back to 2012 mostly hit $4 billion-plus.
However, EntTelligence analytics report that attendance was up 1 million year-on-year, to 275 million from May through Labor Day. And, as opposed to last year, when Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 and Disney/Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine combined accounted for 35% of the season ($1.28 billion) domestically, 2025 saw a greater spread, with 11 movies surpassing $100 million this summer.
While the Top 20 list compiled by The Hollywood Reporter is dominated by live-action titles, it’s interesting to note that two of the top five — Disney’s Lilo & Stitch and Universal’s How to Train Your Dragon — are based on popular animation properties. Lilo & Stitch was the No. 1 movie of the summer, releasing May 23 and accumulating $481.8M this season, buoyed by a strong 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and snagging $1.032B worldwide. How to Train Your Dragon came in at No. 3, behind the other scaly CG stars of Jurassic World Rebirth, with $262.7M ($628.8M worldwide) and an RT rating of 76% since its June 13 launch.
The top earning animated release of Summer 2025 at No. 11 overall is DreamWorks/Universal’s The Bad Guys 2, which opened August 1 backed by an 88% Fresh RT score and has totted up $67.8M ($155.8M ww), followed at No. 12 by Elio with a higher domestic take of $72.9M but slightly lower global share ($152.2M); the Pixar original opened June 20 with an 83% on RT. Despite being burdened with the lowest RT score on the Top 20 list at 21%, Paramount’s The Smurfs still managed to sing a happy song on its way to $31.1M since opening July 18 ($110.2M ww, with 72% of its box office from overseas markets) an squeaked into the Top 20 at No. 17 overall.
This is a bit of a comedown for our favorite art form from Summer 2024, when Inside Out 2 (which enjoyed a stint as the top animated film of all time before being overthrown by Ne Zha 2) ruled the charts at No. 1 with $650.8M, on its way to $1.7B worldwide). Last summer was also boosted by another franchise blockbuster, Illumination/Universal’s Despicable Me 4, at No. 3 with $355.5M. The season’s Top 20 also included Sony’s The Garfield Movie at No. 11 ($91.9M) and the stunning success of the 15th anniversary re-release of Laika’s Coraline at No. 17 ($30.5M).
An honorable mention of course goes to the Sony Pictures Animation-produced Netflix hit KPop Demon Hunters, which had a lively limited theatrical release for its Sing-Along Event on August 23 & 24. The music-filled sensation — which has just marked its unprecedented 11th week (Aug. 25-31) on Netflix’s Top 10 English Film chart at No. 1 again with 30.1 million views, powered by the streaming release of the sing-along version — rocked to $19.2 million domestically and claimed the weekend’s No. 1 spot, overtaking the critically acclaimed thriller Weapons (No. 10 on the summer’s overall list). KPop is officially Netflix’s most popular English-language film of all time, with discussions of a sequel underway.
Heading into the back-to-school, holiday and early awards rush season, theaters can look forward to animated boosts from major studio releases including Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie (DreamWorks/Universal, Sept. 26 [hybrid]), Zootopia 2 (Disney, Nov. 26) and The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (Paramount/Nickelodeon, Dec. 19), as well as 30th anniversary re-release of Toy Story (Disney/Pixar, Sept. 12) and prestige imports for the cinephile crowd like The Legend of Hei 2 (GKIDS, Sept. 5), Lesbian Space Princess (Fandor, Oct. 31), Arco (GKIDS, Nov. 14), A Magnificent Life (Sony Pictures Classics) and Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (GKIDS); anime seat fillers like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle (Crunchyroll/Sony, Sept. 12), Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc (Sony, Oct. 29) and Mamoru Oshii throwback Angel’s Egg (GKIDS, Nov. 19); indie family offerings including Pets on a Train (Viva, Oct. 17), Stitch Head (Briarcliff, Oct. 29) and Grand Prix of Europe (Viva, Nov. 7); and another Laika re-release, ParaNorman (Oct. 14).
[Sources: Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, BoxOfficeMojo]
