Summer box office 2025: what were the big hits and misses?

The season saw Marvel and DC attempting a superhero comeback, a rush of millennial nostalgia plays and surprise theatrical hits from streamers

Another post-pandemic summer is over and we have ourselves another reminder that Barbenheimer was a fluke with overall takings down again. With some early hits, such as Lilo & Stitch, some had expected this season’s blockbusters to take the industry to the magic $4bn mark (something only achieved once since 2019, thanks to Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy), but that was not to be.

Box office was around $3.53bn, a gentle rise from last year, which suffered from a rocky start and ended up at $3.52bn. But what was behind that number and which films should have helped push it even higher?