Prior to the release of "Avatar: Fire and Ash" in the week before Christmas, 2025 was another disappointing year at the box office. According to industry tracker The Numbers, this year's domestic box office gross will be roughly in line with last year's result, which fell short of the 2023 total, not to mention coming anywhere close to pre-pandemic levels. At an estimated total of $8.6 billion, the North American box office fell 23 percent short of its 2019 performance last year and is currently projected to do the same in 2025.
While that sounds bad enough, it gets worse: looking at ticket sales, which takes rising ticket prices out of the equation, the results are more dire than the box office earnings would suggest. Compared to 2019, ticket sales are down almost 40 percent, and, perhaps most concerning, the decline in ticket sales began long before the pandemic. According to The Numbers, ticket sales of North American movie theaters peaked in the early 2000s. Since the turn of the millennium, they decline by 46 percent. Box office revenue, however, is up 14 percent since 2000, partially glossing over a weakness that goes beyond post-pandemic struggles.
While the short-term weakness can be explained by things like the 2023 Hollywood writers strikes, which created a scarcity of blockbuster releases, and economic hardship caused by inflation, the longer-term decline in ticket sales indicates that consumers are gradually falling out of love with the cinema. While the first two factors will eventually recede, consumer habits appear to have changed for good and the film industry will have to find new ways to attract consumers, who are obviously enjoying to consume most video content in their own home, whenever they please. Shortened theatrical release windows, a genie let out of the bottle when studios were desperate to make money during Covid lockdowns, don't help with this development, as consumers have even less incentive to go to the movies if they can enjoy the same film at home, possibly for free, just a few weeks later.
