2025 Summer Box Office Preview - In A Season Uncommonly Dominated By Franchise Déjà Vu, Why ‘Superman’ Has An Edge
In a season filled with literal remakes plus sequels or reboots that seem like loose remakes of prior films in a given franchise, 'Superman' at least looks different from previous Man of Steel movies
I know I should be writing a super-exhaustive and math-packed summer movie preview post. However, this is the first summer since 2019 with what feels like enough wide-release movies, in terms of volume, variety, and regularity, that I’m less concerned with the macro-sized seasonal gross than I am with how each film performs against its budget and expectations. My key concern is the extent to which this summer is – even more than usual - a glorified rerun in terms of previously big-deal franchises, past-its-prime cinematic brands, and IP-for-IP’s sake legacy sequels. It’s the summers of 2016 and 2023 on steroids.
Yes, there are plenty of promising originals or new-to-you potential winners below the “tentpole” or “franchise” level. A24 is launching a star-driven romantic comedy with Celine Song’s Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans-starring Materialists in the middle of June. Their late May horror release, Bring Her Back (from Talk to Me’s Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou), is, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, scaring the hell out of me in terms of its most recent poster and trailer. I’m not one to get the heebies and/or jeebies from horror movie marketing, so that’s enticing.
Zach Cregger’s cryptically creepy-looking Weapons (whose teaser will play on most Sinners prints) could be a bigger hit than Barbarian ($48 million globally in late 2022) and Companion ($36 million worldwide earlier this year) to become a mid-August sleeper. Ditto Neon’s allegedly terrific Mike Flanagan-directed The Life of Chuck (based on a Stephen King melodrama) in early June and (artistically speaking) new films from the likes of Ari Aster and Wes Anderson. However, in terms of franchises and IP, especially among films looking to do severe damage to cash registers, it’s quite possibly the most deja vu summer I can remember.
Many of this year’s big IP-specific films look like (from a marketing point of view) a glorified remake of a given franchise installment. It’s not just recycled franchises, but (seemingly) recycled movies from recycled franchises. Amid this “been there, done that” summer slate, Superman could (at least domestically) win by default. Especially if it lives up to the aspirational hype, it could score huge and leg out merely by virtue of offering something that, at the very least, we haven’t seen in a Superman flick before. That may be a low bar to clear, but… that’s Hollywood in 2025.