• by Wayne Friedman , Today

North American movie box-office revenue plunged to the lowest-grossing Halloween weekend in 31 years at just $49.8 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

This doesn’t include holiday weekend results of the 2020 pandemic period.

The top two movies over the Halloween weekend this year could only muster around $8 million each -- Paramount Pictures’ drama/romance “Regretting You” at $8.1 million (in its second week of release) and Universal Pictures’ horror-content “Black Phone 2” with $8.0 million (in its third week).

While the blame might have been shared with the quality and marketing effort around those movies, analysts also say the last two entertaining World Series national TV games (with the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday and Saturday), which had high viewership, may have also contributed.

Through 10 months of 2025, the domestic box office is 3% higher versus 2024 results over the same period to $6.9 billion -- but still down 9% versus the same time period in 2023.

Over the last 30 days, the highest national TV advertising-spending movies were Walt Disney’s “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” at $11.0 million, according to EDO Ad EnGage, followed by Focus Features’ “Bugonia” with $8.4 million and Disney’s “Tron: Ares” at $7.51 million.

Year-to-date, national TV ad spending is slightly down (4%) to $736.4 million -- with 187,990 airings and 103.8 billion impressions compared to a year ago over the same period, when it totaled $767.1 million -- 163,410 airings and 91.3 billion impressions.

The three highest-spending movies of the year were Universal’s “Jurassic World: Rebirth” with $34.0 million, followed by Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning” at $27.7 million and Universal’s “How To Train Your Dragon” at $27.5 million.

Those movies made the top ten of all 2025 domestic-grossing movies so far this year.

“Jurassic World” (fourth place) at $339.6 million, “Mission Impossible” (ninth place)-- $197.4 million; “How To Train Your Dragon” (seventh place)-- $263.0 million.