There has been a lot of talk in 2025 about the state of the American box office, and specifically how its overall recovery seems to have plateaued, hard, well below the level it was operating at in the years before the COVID-19 lockdowns. And that’s still, generally, true: Per Variety, overall ticket sales are stuck at a point about 20 percent below where they were when the theaters shut down back in early 2020, with no sign that they’ll ever get back up to the lofty numbers that marked the blockbuster seasons of 2019. Unless, of course, your name is Disney.
Because while the House Of Mouse certainly had some missteps this yearâlikely losing money on films like Snow White, Elio, and Tron: Ares, while its Marvel movies continue to only do fine, not great, at the box officeâit also had enough major hits that it’s about to post its biggest year-end numbers since 2019, making this the first year since then that it’s crossed the $6 billion mark globally. It’s not clear exactly where the needle will stop, either, given that Zootopia 2, currently the second-biggest film of 2025 at the global box office, is still in theaters, while Avatar: Fire And Ash has had only a single weekend to start bringing in bank. But regardless of the final tally, it’s still a haul that defies the overall trend in increasingly fatigued movie-going audiences.
As has been the case for a full decade at this point, Disney is mostly in a race with itself when it comes to this stuff. (The last time it had serious competition on this score was 2015, when Universal had Jurassic World, Minions, and Furious 7 all bulking up its yearly take.) It’s also not entirely clear why this particular rising tide doesn’t seem to be lifting any other boatsâbeyond the pretty basic analysis that people like going to see Avatar movies, and enjoy having a Zootopia sequel or a live-action Lilo And Stitch to plonk their kids down in front of. In any case, it raises some real questions about whether Disney will be able to maintain this momentum as it heads into 2026, a year that’s going to see it bet hard that Marvel can bounce back, with both Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday carrying its blockbuster, “Please give us $1.5 billion per movie” hopes.
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