There was a major upset at the box office. In its second week, The Mandalorian and Grogu fell to third place behind two low-budget horror films, Backrooms and Obsession. The Star Wars brand was once considered untouchable, but something has clearly changed.
If you thought the 2025 domestic box office had outperformed the 2024 box office (as had I originally), think again. Only a gluttony of extra films managed to make that picture look like reality. But the truth is a much harsher mistress for cinemas and movie lovers....
Hollywood entered 2025 with modest hopes for theatrical box office recovery — and still came up short.
According to year-end domestic ticket sales data reported by Variety, the 2025 box office closed at $8.87 billion, narrowly missing the already-reduced $9 billion projection that analysts had framed as a realistic benchmark. While the industry has attempted to spin the result as progress, the numbers tell a far less flattering story.
Warner Bros. is showing zero signs of blinking as Dune: Part Three barrels toward a direct collision with Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Doomsday, setting up what could become one of the most fascinating theatrical standoffs in recent memory. It’s a clash many are already calling “Dunesday.”
Legendary Entertainment has acquired the film adaptation rights to Alchemised, a novel by SenLinYu that originated from a Harry Potter fan fiction, in a deal reported to be worth seven figures. The agreement, reached before the book’s publication, is understood to exceed $3 million and is considered one of the more notable pre-publication movie rights sales in recent industry reporting.
According to the official DC Instagram account, to “celebrate 1 year of DCU peak” all seven episodes of Creature Commandos will be free on YouTube for a limited time. Rather than individual uploads, the series will be a livestream available on December 22, from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM, and again on Tuesday, December 23, from 3:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
According to Cosmic Book News, the backlash for the Supergirl trailer has been more severe in its first 24 hours on YouTube than the Superman trailer received its first six months. Keen-eyed viewers of the Supergirl trailer noticed that while Superman was celebrated for saving a town, all she’d done was rescue some cats. Now, it seems she’s failing to measure up in another, more quantifiable way.
Everything about Matt Reeves’ The Batman: Part II is shrouded in secrecy. But World of Reel has compiled a list of rumors that taken together suggest an intriguing narrative direction. Additionally, based on the themes established in the first film and recent casting announcements, many fans are speculating that the new movie’s plot will draw heavily from The Long Halloween comic.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Gunn openly suggested that Batman has effectively run out of storytelling value, calling the character “boring” due to decades of exposure across comics, television, and film. While Gunn insists he has a plan for the Dark Knight within the DC Universe, his comments are already fueling concern among fans who have reservations about the brooding and serious Batman in the hands of a director with Gunn’s portfolio of zany comedic films.
The WB Paramount takeover battle is far from over, despite Warner Bros. Discovery’s board issuing a forceful public rejection of Paramount Skydance’s $30-per-share hostile bid.
In a Thursday morning interview with CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger was asked for his thoughts on the battle being waged for Warner Bros. Like everyone else, Iger is watching from the sidelines — but unlike most, he’s orchestrated major studio mergers himself.
Fans got their first look at Miley Alcock’s Supergirl in action with the release of the film’s first trailer. In two minutes, viewers were introduced to Kara Zor-El and a new corner of the DC Universe (DCU). While the movie was written by Ana Nogueira (based on a story by Tom King), and directed by Craig Gillespie, producer James Gunn’s fingerprints are all over the place.
Late last week, Netflix struck an $82.7 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. However, a recent report from Bloomberg suggests that before the Warner Bros. bidding war started, the streaming giant had flirted with the idea of pursuing EA Games, Fox (before the Disney merger), or Disney itself.