Hollywood wrapped up a turbulent 2025 with a festive surge in ticket sales, led by James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash dominating the Christmas weekend at the box office. Over the four-day holiday period, the sci-fi blockbuster grossed about $88 million domestically, helping to lift its two-week total to more than $217 million in North America and over $540 million internationally in just its first fortnight, with the potential to become the first franchise with three $2 billion films worldwide. Alongside Avatar, Timothée Chalamet’s sports drama “Marty Supreme” opened strongly with roughly $27.1 million, marking a significant debut for indie studio A24. Another new release, Sony’s comedy Anaconda, also contributed to busy holiday ticket sales.
The broader 2025 trend saw animated and PG-rated films performing particularly well throughout the year, including sequels such as Zootopia 2 and Lilo & Stitch, even as overall U.S. box-office sales for the year finished around $8.76 billion, slightly above 2024 yet still below pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, international films like China’s Ne Zha 2 and streaming hits such as KPop Demon Hunters also drew large audiences, while the industry looks ahead to highly anticipated 2026 releases.
