• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

The struggling summer U.S./Canada theatrical movie business is virtually flat compared to box-office revenue a year ago -- down 1.1% to $3.59 billion, according to IMDb Box Office Mojo.

Summer movie box-office results typically can be a barometer for the health of the business.

Looking at just in-season first-time releases in the period, the domestic box office is down 10% to $3.31 billion in box-office revenues versus a year ago ($3.67 billion). The biggest summer box-office movie for 2025 so far is Walt Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” ($423.3 million).

The 2025 summer period is also down 18% from 2023 summer’s in-season film results (and 11% lower overall), which landed at $4.06 billion. That was the summer of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,”  the strongest summer movie result so far in the post-pandemic period.

A broader 2025 view of the domestic theatrical movie business -- the first nine months of the year -- has box office revenues up 4.6% to $5.89 billion (versus $5.63 billion in 2024).

This includes re-released movies like “Jaws 50” which aired over the recent Labor Day weekend. It was the movie’s 50th anniversary of its original debut. Just looking at ‘in-season releases,” box office revenue is slightly down, 0.2%.

Overall, movie studios are spending less on TV marketing for theatrical releases this year.

Through the first nine months of 2025 -- through Labor Day -- movie studios' spending on national TV advertising for movies is down 9% to $589.8 million, according to EDO Ad EnGage, versus a year ago ($646.8 million).

This year there were 158,960 airings, totaling 85.6 billion impressions, compared to a year ago, when there were 134,710 airings, and 75.1 billion impressions.

Domestic movies of 2025 that scored top box-office revenue so far include Warner Bros.’s “A Minecraft Movie” ($423.9 million), Walt Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” ($423.3 million), Warner Bros. “Superman” ($351.7 million), and Universal Pictures’ “Jurassic World: Rebirth” ($338.3 million).

The biggest national TV advertising spending for movie studios this year through Labor Day so far is by Universal Pictures ($136.2 million), followed by Walt Disney ($123.7 million); Warner Bros. D ($119.5 million); Paramount Pictures ($73.2 million), Focus Features ($31.4 million), Sony Pictures ($29.0 million) and Metro Goldwyn Mayer ($25.7 million).