The holiday lights are down, the Patriots are back in an AFC Title Game, and Monday was MLK Day, so at long last the 2025 Holiday Blockbuster Pool has come to an end!
The three-way battle for the top was must-watch TV (strange phrase for the metaphor) while the “hanging on for dear life” of the bottom two films was anything but riveting.
Let’s give a “So Long, Farewell, Until We Stream Again” to the films that didn’t in 2025 before celebrating the true Top 5 of the Holiday Blockbuster Pool.
- The anime film Scarlet got scared of being too much in the red and got delayed till February.
- Ella McCay had more cast members than people who saw it.
- Is This Thing On? might as well have been named Did This Even Come Out?
- The Whole Bloody Kill Bill was killed by indifference.
- Sisu 2 might’ve been the only film I saw twice this season, but when even Bradley Cooper can’t make a hit, a mute, old-man, Finnish killing machine isn’t going to cut it either.
- Sing Song Blue was just blue. When even my wife is over Hugh Jackman, I don’t even know how to make sense of the world anymore.
- The Running Man ran in circles only to stand still.
- Now You See Me, Now You Don’t should’ve focused more on being seen.
- Sadly, too many people said my Anaconda don’t want none.
- Even the search party didn’t come back from The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants.
- David defeated Goliath and got the girl, but didn’t win the pool.
- To be fair, Marty Supreme becoming the biggest movie about ping-pong since Forest Gump is nothing to sneeze at.
- Predator: Badlands was bad (as in good… it’s an 80’s thing) enough to hold the #5 spot in the pool until the bitter end… But the end is now. Nice try, guys!
And now, it’s finally here… The Top Five Films of the 2025 Holiday Blockbuster Pool!!!
Wow. Well done, you. To be fair, I saw this movie for the same reasons a lot of people did (No, not the Sydney Sweeney sex scenes… that was just a perk). Avatar seemed too long, Marty seemed too serious, and I just wanted a dumb movie to pass the time with… and this fit the bill! Kudos to all for creating a counter-programming flick that did its job and reminding me of good ole 90’s thrillers that I can enjoy and then never think about again. Ladies and gentlemen, The Housemaid!
It’s a FNaF World and we’re all just living in it. There may not be a bigger gap between the Tomatometer and the Popcornmeter scores than the 16% vs 84% rankings, but just let the people be happy. No one’s going to confuse these films with Oppenheimer and no one is trying to. Besides, it’s another hit for Josh Hutcherson: Team Peeta 4 Life! I can buy my own damn flowers, Liam Hemsworth!
A lot of people wondered if Part Two could live up to Wicked Part One and the reality is that it couldn’t. The new songs didn’t click and the padding to bloat the second act didn’t add to anything. Maybe they could’ve trimmed here and there to squeeze these two parts into a single 3 ½ hour movie, yet that single “great” film likely wouldn’t have grossed over the $800 million these two films made combined. Maybe it’s the classic Hollywood story: they made the right business decision to the detriment of the art… and they’d happily do it again :)
While I wonder if James Cameron will ever just make a “regular” film again (self-contained, goes from Point A to Point B, “only” costs $200 million instead of $500 to make, etc.), it has to sting Disney that folks are already tuning out the Avatar movies after one comeback movie. Even globally, this movie has made a BILLION less than Avatar 2 by this point. My son read an interview back when The Way of Water came out that Avatar 4 is where the series really goes next level. It might have to to get the masses back to Pandora.
No matter how many times I’ve called this film Zoolander 2, I appreciate that everyone around me knows what I’m talking about because everyone knows no one’s ever talked about Zoolander 2. It’s like the Fight Club of sequels. Regardless, let’s celebrate an unnecessary sequel that’s still a good time topping the charts. Much like Inside Out 2, Zootopia 2 wasn’t the movie anyone asked for, but it was the film we needed. If the “blah” and “meh” Wicked and Avatar had won the pool, it takes some of the fun out of it. So, let’s hear it for the 2025 Holiday Blockbuster Pool winner… Sing us out, Gazelle!
