2025 Studio Box Office Review, Part 2: ‘Jurassic World,’ Crunchyroll and Lionsgate’s Reawakening | Analysis

In the first part of our 2025 box office studio review, we looked at the three studios that got the most headlines this year: Warner Bros. for its historic hot streak that proved the doubters of “Mike & Pam” wrong, Paramount for its tumultuous year amid an ownership change, and Disney for, well, being Disney.

But several other studios also left a mark on the box office, whether it was Universal maintaining its high level of consistency, Sony’s years of developing a specialty branch bearing fruit, or Lionsgate slowly starting to become a meaningful player in the theatrical marketplace again.

Let’s break down how they all did…and give a nod to the indies as well.

Universal

Highs: “Jurassic World: Rebirth” ($339.1M domestic/$869.1M worldwide); “How to Train Your Dragon” ($262.9M dom./$636.3M WW); “Wicked: For Good” ($331.6M dom./$503M WW as of 12/29)

Lows: “M3GAN 2.0” ($39M WW); “Wolf Man” ($35.1M WW); “Love Hurts” ($17.6M WW)

By Universal’s standards, 2025 was a “down” year with a 10% drop in its domestic grosses from 2024. But even in that down year, the studio still racked up more than $1.5 billion in North America and a market share of approximately 18%, not counting the $215 million from its specialty branch, Focus Features.

No, the studio didn’t have any films that grossed $400 million-plus domestic or $1 billion worldwide, but it got good returns out of its key tentpoles. “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” while the first in the series to fall short of the $1 billion mark, still has a foothold with audiences around the world and made $869.1 million.

“How to Train Your Dragon” got a remake that made more before inflation than any of the DreamWorks animated titles it is based off of, and now a remake of the second film in the trilogy is set for 2027. “Wicked: For Good” didn’t defy gravity like its 2024 predecessor but still added $500 million to Universal’s global total, and sequels to “The Black Phone” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” found mid-budget success.

The one big misstep for Universal? Original horror. While “Sinners” and “Weapons” lit up the box office, Universal had misfires like “Him,” “The Woman in the Yard” and “Wolf Man.” The latter two came from Blumhouse, which despite its end-of-year sequel success still has work to do to rediscover its magic touch with releasing high-concept horror films that made it — and often, by extension, Universal — major contributors to the genre’s continued theatrical success.

But other than that, Universal proved to be the most stable studio in Hollywood this year and should continue to be that in 2026 with a pair of potential billion-dollar hits: Illumination’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” the latter of which could pass the “Dark Knight” films as the Oscar-winning director’s highest grossing movie.

Other films on the horizon include a third “Minions” film, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s “Reminders of Him,” and Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day.”

Sony

Highs: “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” ($134.4M dom./$540M WW); “28 Years Later” ($70M dom./$150M WW); “One of Them Days” ($50M dom.)

Lows: “Caught Stealing” ($28.3M WW); “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” ($20.1M WW)

On the tentpole front, Sony’s 2025 left a lot to be desired. While 2024 had a hit sequel in “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and Colleen Hoover’s calling card “It Ends With Us,” Sony almost went through the year without any films grossing more than $100 million domestically.

That is, until “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” shattered the box office record for an anime film with $134.4 million grossed in the U.S. alone along with $406 million from Sony-distributed international territories. Yes, it’s a testament to the unique global appeal of “Demon Slayer” among the modern lineup of anime series, but it is also a testament to the years that Sony’s Crunchyroll division has put into making anime into a key part of the specialty theatrical market.

Beyond that, Sony also found some mid-budget hits including the early-year comedy “One of Them Days” and Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later,” which will see its planned trilogy to completion as the second installment, “The Bone Temple,” comes out in January while the final chapter has been greenlit.

Still, with approximately $560 million in domestic grosses, Sony’s market share dipped to around 6.5% this year without a major four-quadrant hit on its record…except for the cultural phenomenon that went to Netflix, “KPop Demon Hunters.” Though theaters got a small chunk of that bonanza with $24 million from a pair of limited weekend engagements, exhibitors will likely see Huntr/x as the hit that got away…even though it could be argued that its streaming release contributed to its popularity in a way that theaters couldn’t easily replicate.

Fortunately for Sony, “Spider-Man” will be back on the slate for the next two years with Marvel Studios’ “Brand New Day” in 2026 and the animated trilogy capper “Beyond the Spider-Verse” in 2027.

Other films on the studio’s 2026 slate for next year include the original animated movie “Goat” — a key film for preventing another early-year slump — and a third “Jumanji” revival film for the holidays. And as for “KPop,” Sony has reached a deal with Netflix on a sequel set for 2029 that should add to its bottom line even if it doesn’t come with a theatrical release.

Lionsgate

Highs: “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” ($61.7M dom./$210M WW); “The Housemaid” ($52M WW as of 12/29); “The Long Walk” ($62.8M WW)

Lows: “The Unbreakable Boy” ($6.6M WW); “Hurry Up Tomorrow” ($7.7M WW); “Shadow Force” ($5.3M WW)

For the better part of two years, Lionsgate has been in a bit of a limbo theatrically. Their thrifty model for producing and marketing films has kept their movies from being true flops for them, but neither have their films been titles that movie theaters plan their quarterly finances around. The question has been: when will this studio be a major box office player again?

Thankfully for exhibitors, Lionsgate has been waking up over the last third of 2025. While the summer saw the “John Wick” spinoff “Ballerina” heavily underperform compared to the mainline installments in the franchise, September brought a low-budget hit with “The Long Walk,” a title that studio insiders tell TheWrap was a particularly proud success.

Despite being an adaptation of arguably Stephen King’s bleakest story, the film grossed a respectable $35 million domestic. Lionsgate followed that up with “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” with $61.5 million in the U.S., and now has Paul Feig’s “The Housemaid” set to do even better with $46.4 million grossed through two weekends and likely to become Lionsgate’s highest grossing film in two years as it legs out with women at cinemas.

That leads into a 2026 where Lionsgate will definitely have films that theater owners will be circling on their calendars, including the domestic release of the music biopic “Michael” that will effectively serve as the launch film of the summer season now that “Avengers: Doomsday” has moved to December. “Hunger Games” fans are also expected to turn out in droves for “Sunrise on the Reaping,” a prequel centered around one of the series’ most popular characters, Haymitch Abernathy.

Other films on the slate include a sequel to one of the most successful faith-based films of all time, “I Can Only Imagine,” and the summer comedy “Power Ballad” starring Nick Jonas and Paul Rudd.

Best of the rest

Finally, it’s worth giving a nod to some of the other top distributors of 2025, most notably A24, which has cross $250 million in annual domestic grosses for the first time in its history.

Films like the love triangle drama “Materialists” ($36.5 million) and the intensely realistic war film “Warfare” ($25.7 million) were major contributors, but the big hit for the studio is undoubtedly “Marty Supreme,” which after its $27 million Christmas opening is set to pass “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and become A24’s highest grossing film ever. Credit to Timothee Chalamet for proving his unique star power, and the studio for giving him the tools for a unique marketing campaign.

Focus Features entered the year with “Nosferatu” riding high and got a bit more juice out of “Downton Abbey” with its final feature film, “The Grand Finale” ($45 million) while it hopes to get Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet” to leg out into 2026 after it gets its Oscar nominations. Angel Studios, now just known as Angel, still hasn’t found another live-action hit even a third of the level of “Sound of Freedom” but is starting to build a reputation among Christian family audiences with the animated films “The King of Kings” ($61.5 million) and “David” ($50 million and counting).

Neon continued to build its indie horror reputation with “Together” ($21 million) and “The Monkey”($39 million), though the studio’s partnership with the latter film’s director, Osgood Perkins, may have hit its expiration date as his followup film “Keeper” tanked with just $4.2 million grossed.

All these studios and more will be entering a much more crowded independent market, as Mubi tries again for theatrical success after its big Cannes acquisition “Die My Love” didn’t work out and newcomer distributors Black Bear and the freshly founded Row K are expected to be on the market for acquisitions at Sundance.

And of course, 2026 will bring the arrival of Amazon MGM as a full scale theatrical distributor, aiming to fill in the hole left behind by 20th Century Fox after it was bought by Disney. That begins in January with the thriller “Mercy” starring Chris Pratt and could yield the hit of the spring with the Ryan Gosling sci-film “Project Hail Mary.”

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