The children are our future. At least, that’s what the 2025 box office would lead me to believe. Because when I think of 2025, the first thing that comes to mind is kids’ movies. I don’t know if there were more movies for the chillins this year, or if they just performed better than last year’s crop (the 2025 box office was a slight uptick overall), but I swear kids’ movies, and horror, are the only sure things these days.
Zootopia 2, A Minecraft Movie, Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon, KPop Demon Hunters, whatever the hell Ne Zha 2 is supposed to be, these are the films filling seats in today’s theaters. Oh, and Avatar, but that one’s for the child in all of us.
Now, there were two box-office breakthroughs this year (spoiler alert: they’re my number one and number three) that were original films and actually performed well. Yet I get the sense studios weren’t thrilled about that. Why else would they make such a concerted effort to downplay those successes? Studios want to pull the strings, so it makes sense they’d bristle at directors who claim full ownership of their art. The struggle is real.
I guess what I’m saying is the corporate fuckification of the movie industry feels more noticeable than ever, and it’s hard not to wonder what that means for theatergoing, if theatergoing will even exist in the coming years.
With that existential dread out of the way, let’s get into it!
