Tom Cruise, Superman and 'Avatar' hold keys to 2025 box office

Tom Cruise takes on what may be his final "Mission: Impossible," a new Superman will wear the red cape, and the record-setting "Avatar" sci-fi series will return to movie theatres this year.

Those films and more are giving cinema operators hope that the long recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will continue in 2025. Five years after the start of the health crisis, moviegoing has not fully rebounded.

Box office receipts totalled $8.6 billion last year in the United States and Canada, 25 per cent below the pre-pandemic heights of $11.4 billion in 2019.

The film industry was disrupted again in 2023 when Hollywood writers and actors went on strike.

"That complex matrix of filmmaking, where everyone wants the best talent and the best actors and the best sets, it takes a long time to get that running again," said Tim Richards, founder and CEO of Europe's Vue Cinemas. "2025 is going to feel the tail end of that."

Top names in the movie business will gather at the annual CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas early next month to talk about the state of the industry.

The conference draws executives from Hollywood studios and multiplex operators such as AMC Entertainment, Cinemark and Cineworld as well as owners of single theatres in small towns.

At the Academy Awards this month, Anora filmmaker and best director winner Sean Baker delivered a "battle cry" for filmmakers, distributors and audiences to support theatres. "The theatre-going experience is under threat," he said, noting that the number of screens shrunk during the pandemic. "If we don't reverse this trend, we'll be losing a vital part of our culture."

Shawn Robbins, Director of Movie Analytics at Fandango and founder and owner of Box Office Theory, said the movie business was adjusting to "a new normal".

"Event movies are increasingly drivers of the business," he said. "There's even more weight on their shoulders in terms of box office dollars."

Moviegoers still turn out for big-budget films, Robbins said, but have shown they are happy to wait to watch others at home. "It is very common knowledge that a lot of movies will be available to stream within three to eight weeks, whereas it used to be a minimum of three months," he said.

'Avatar' as tipping point?

Among the big hitters coming to theatres this year are Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, a movie that may be Cruise's last appearance in the long-running action franchise. "One last time," he says in the trailer. The film will debut over the US Memorial Day weekend in May, along with Walt Disney's live-action version of animated classic Lilo & Stitch.

Brad Pitt plays a Formula 1 driver in the June release F1, and in July, Warner Bros will release its new "Superman" movie directed by Guardians of the Galaxy filmmaker James Gunn and starring David Corenswet.

From Marvel, the anti-hero team Thunderbolts will kick off the summer moviegoing season in early May, followed by The Fantastic Four in late July.

Around the November and December holidays, offerings include the second part of musical box office phenomenon Wicked, animated sequel Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third film in James Cameron's "Avatar" series. The first "Avatar" is the highest-grossing movie of all time, and the second movie ranks third.

Robbins projected 2025 would end with a slight increase in domestic box office receipts compared with last year, "maybe flirting with $9 billion". He said it is unclear when ticket sales will return to pre-pandemic levels.

Richards said he believed the new "Avatar" would kick off "an extraordinary three to five years" for cinemas.

"We're going to see (Avatar) as the tipping point," Richards said. "2026 has got an extraordinary number of great films."