Movie Theaters Just Experienced Their Lowest Box Office Month in Almost 30 Years

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October 2025 is shaping up to be a disappointing month for movie theaters. Several highly anticipated films, including Tron: Ares, The Smashing Machine, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, and After the Hunt, haven’t performed well. The delay of Mortal Kombat 2 from October 24th to May 2026 has only made things worse, leaving a significant gap in the movie release calendar.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, box office revenue for October 2025 was only $425 million, making it the worst October in 27 years. Comscore, the company tracking these numbers, points out that this doesn’t include October 2020, when the film Tenet earned theaters $55 million despite many cinemas being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. THR notes the last time October was this slow was in 1997, which saw $385.2 million in ticket sales (without adjusting for inflation). While slow, 1997 did feature the popular hit I Know What You Did Last Summer and the critically praised film Boogie Nights.

What Happened to the Box Office in October?


A24

October was once a quiet month for movies, with only the occasional horror hit bridging the gap between summer and the holidays. Studios often used this time to release potential Oscar winners, like The Social Network and Gone Girl. But over the last ten years, October became a surprisingly lucrative month, with films like Venom, Joker, A Star is Born, Gravity, and Halloween achieving blockbuster-level success. This year, however, the big release, Tron: Ares, underperformed, earning just $63 million since its October 10th debut – and it’s still the highest-grossing film of the month. Smaller, awards-focused films like The Smashing Machine and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere also failed to attract the same audiences they once did.

Movie theaters benefited greatly from Taylor Swift’s surprise release of The Official Release Party of a Showgirl in October, which earned $34 million domestically in its first month. While Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc wasn’t as successful as previous anime films like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie – Infinity Castle, its $18 million opening weekend still placed it at the top, highlighting a generally weak month for movie releases. The only clear success story of October was the horror film The Black Phone 2, released on October 17th, earning $51 million domestically and providing a much-needed win for Blumhouse after a year of underperforming movies.

It’s hard to say what could have prevented the recent box office struggles. Perhaps Disney should have released Predator: Badlands in October rather than November. If Netflix had given Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein a wide release in theaters, it probably would have been a successful film that people wanted to see on the big screen before Halloween. Looking ahead to October 2026, things could improve with the release of The Social Network sequel, The Social Reckoning, alongside a new Street Fighter movie and a feature film continuation of the Avatar: The Last Airbender series. However, 2025 has shown us that there are no sure things when it comes to box office success.

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2025-10-30 23:02