When Hollywood’s summer movie season kicks off on Friday, theater owners will be counting on the high-heeled women of “The Devil Wears Prada 2” instead of cape-wearing superheroes to draw audiences to the cineplex, according to Reuters.
For the past two decades, the first weekend in May featured a superhero movie or other high-octane adventure on the big screen.
Walt Disney had planned to release “Avengers: Doomsday” in the slot this year but swapped in “Prada 2,” a comedy starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, when the filmmakers needed more time on the Marvel film.
The move is expected to pay off with a strong opening for “Prada,” box office analysts said. It also coincides with a decline in box office power for action flicks, according to an analysis of US and Canadian box office receipts by TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz.
In 2025, Creutz said, “Superman,” “F1” and other action/adventure movies accounted for 35% of ticket sales from the top 100 films.
That tied for the lowest share since 2010 and marked the third year in a row in the mid-30% range.
Disney’s Marvel superhero movies and Universal’s “Fast & Furious” racing films, among others, attracted large audiences to theaters in the 2010s.
As recently as 2022, action movies brought in 56% of domestic box office dollars, lifted by Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun: Maverick.”
The number of action films sent to theaters has remained steady at about 25 annually for more than a decade.
Part, but not all, of the sales decline may be related to lower quality, Creutz said. But even films with positive reviews from critics pulled in fewer box office dollars than in years past, he said.
“It appears audiences are no longer eager to see even good superhero films today as they were pre-pandemic,” Creutz said in a research note.
Family films, by contrast, are on the rise, as are horror films. Recent hits have included “Lilo & Stitch,” “Zootopia 2” and “The Super Mario Bros Movie.”
Theater owners said genre popularity is cyclical. The key to success, they said, is a wide range of movies throughout the year.—Reuters
About The Author
