School’s back in session, the Hollywood Bowl shuttles are winding down, and Halloween Horror Nights is already up-and-running, so it must be time for the end of the 2025 Summer Blockbuster Pool!
Let’s take a look at some of the films that made this summer so memorable… or, sadly, some films we’ve already forgotten even came out this summer.
The “A Note About August” Section
While the month doesn’t feel like it’s a part of the “blockbuster” season anymore, there were still a steady stream of successful film releases.
- Family films Freakier Friday will get to $90 million and Bad Guys 2 will make it to $80 million. Combined, that’s another $170 million hit PG movie.
- The Naked Gun probably broke even with its $50 million run. Follow-up sequels of 2½ and 33⅓ seem less than likely though.
- Side note: Darren Aronofsky has made some of the most interesting and original movies in the past 20 years. Not all great, mind you, but certainly unique. This time he made like a Guy Ritchie-esque movie and was out-gained in the weekend box-office by a Jaws re-release. I won’t mind trying to catch Caught Steeling at some point, but seeing Prince’s Sing O The Times in IMAX was way more “must see” to me.
The Pretenders List
It’s great that so many films did well for themselves this year (Take a bow, Final Destinations: Bloodlines!), but a few took epic nosedives.
- I still don’t know how I Know What You Did Last Summer did THAT poorly.
- Megan 2.0 showed why that old adage of “Let’s do the opposite of everything that worked in the first film” isn’t actually an adage.
- Nobody 2 was a sequel to a film that was a “hit” on streaming… and no one wanted to actually go to theaters to see it. As The Rock would say, “Know your roll, jabroni.”
- Ballerina might’ve worked better as a Black Swan sequel. As a John Wick side-story, it’s about as memorable as a side ad on my Roku screen.
- If you ever, and I’ll spare you… DON’T!... Google “What went wrong with Elio,” you’ll find all the multiple writers, voice casts, and directions this film traveled… In an animated film that you can’t exactly do “reshoots” for.
The “I Think That Was A Hit” Division
- 28 Years Later was NOT the Weapons of the summer, though it probably thought it could be. A $70 million total with the promise of two more movies in this new trilogy? I think they’ll take it. Way better than Kevin Costner’s Horizon film did!
- $138 million for Final Destination: Bloodlines?! Hell to the yeah. The studio would’ve been fine with half of that.
- F1 self-drove itself to $188 million. Huge hit for Brad Pitt and Apple TV. Maybe he can pay me back for whatever Wolfs was :)
- ThunderBolts* made Marvel fans feel like they believe again in the MCU… And then came IronHeart on Disney+... Argh.
- Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning won’t go down as a “go to” M:I film, but put Cruise in a brand film and people still show up. If we could get A Few Good Men sequel, my family would be there every night of opening weekend. Just have Daniel Kaffee have to defend Col. Jessup this time around and the scenes write themselves! And did Kaffee become a Washington Nationals fan? These are the things we need to know!
And with that, because Monday was Labor Day, it’s time to acknowledge and congratulate the actual Top 5 Films of The 2025 Summer Blockbuster Pool!!!
First off, shout out to the #5 film of 2025 being a $70 million improvement over the #5 film of 2024! Now that that’s over, this live-action call worked like a charm for the franchise and what could have been a The Mummy flop for Universal Studios became a rebirth of a beloved brand. It will be interesting if they use this franchise to truly go in a new direction of stories or simply remake sequels that have already been made, yet this type of success guarantees the films will go on.
A week ago this film would’ve been #5, but that’s why we go all the way to Labor Day. It lets those later releases have a chance to catch the front-runners. While this did become the highest grossing Fantastic Four movie of all-time, there were still boo birds saying it wasn’t enough. Tell them to go watch some more Thor: Love & Thunder if they want to see a “winner.” I’ll stick to this one.
Ironically, the Despicable Me 4 movie landed in this spot last year and I talked about how it's a series that seems to be a surefire $300 million hit. Let’s go ahead and add Jurassic Park/World to that list. I remember seeing Rebirth and it was one of the quietest packed opening weekend theaters I’d ever been to. It was like everyone kept waiting for the movie to start and then it was over. Guess what, $338 million. Well done, Universal… You did it!
There was a lot of pressure on this film and a lot of damage control in the waiting if things had gone south. Instead, one of the delights of the summer is the #2 film of the season. The top trio casting was perfect as was the tone in showing what it means to be “super” these days: i.e. saving squirrels and unironically enjoying fake pop-punk bands like The Mighty Crabjoys even if critics and “cool kids” say they're not good. I may not save squirrels, but I love a lot of music no one thinks is cool. Stay super, Superman!
Hysterical. Last year at this time I was talking about what a huge hit Inside Out 2 was and how Disney was back. Just six months ago, everyone was laughing about how bad the live-action Snow White was and how Disney’s lost their mind, and then Lilo & Stitch happened. It’s like these things are cyclical or something! L&S delivered all that could be expected for the Mouse House as it’s still surprisingly touching and just plain weird all at the same time. I guess that’s what Ohana is all about.
