🌅 Hollywood’s Worst October in 27 Years

SOURCE

Comscore

WHAT TO KNOW

• Hollywood just had one of its worst October’s in recent history, bringing in a paltry $425 million across all titles, the lowest collective haul since 1997 (excluding 2020, during the heart of the COVID pandemic). Halloween was especially bad, totaling just $49 million to become the worst Halloween in 31 years. The poor performance was almost certainly impacted by the holiday falling on a Friday and Saturday being occupied by Game 7 of the MLB World Series.

WHY IT MATTERS

• October has traditionally been a month that gives studios a breather between the summer blockbuster season and year-end holiday tentpoles; it’s also the time when studios begin pushing their awards contenders. However, October 2025 flopped as studios dropped titles that simply didn’t resonate with audiences, including Disney’s long-awaited Tron: Ares, the month’s top earner, which brought in just $63.4 million domestically. That’s the worst performance for the top film debuting in October since 2005’s The Wallace & Gromit Movie ($56.1 million).

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Industry experts attribute the bad month to low momentum from poor showings in August and September, since a large chunk of October revenue typically comes from carryover titles. Still, year-to-date revenue is running 3.3% ahead of 2024—though that’s down from a 20% lead at the beginning of the summer—and insiders hope the holidays will push 2025 past last year’s $8.9 billion total revenue. There’s good reason to hope: Wicked: For Good (Nov. 21) and Zootopia 2 (Nov. 26) each open this month as two of the most highly anticipated sequels in some time, while Avatar: Fire and Ash and The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (both open Dec. 19) are expected to combine for a strong Christmas push.