Movie theaters in the United States and Canada saw a slight resurgence in 2025, with ticket sales reaching an estimated $8.9 billion, a 2 percent increase compared to the previous year, according to Comscore data. This modest growth occurred despite several high-profile films, including "The Smashing Machine," "Tron: Ares," and "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere," underperforming at the box office, particularly in October.
A key factor in this uptick was the rise of habitual moviegoers. Cinema United, a trade group, reported an 8 percent increase in the number of people seeing at least six films in theaters annually. The growing popularity of membership programs like AMC Stubs A-List, Regal Unlimited, Cinemark Movie Club, and the revamped MoviePass contributed significantly to this trend. These programs offer incentives and discounts, encouraging frequent visits.
"Theaters got smarter about catering to the people who still show up," a Cinema United spokesperson noted.
Beyond loyalty programs, unexpected hits also played a role. Hollywood successfully launched the "Minecraft" franchise and revived "Lilo & Stitch," both resonating strongly with audiences. Originality also showed signs of life, with "Sinners," "F1: The Movie," and "Weapons" all cracking the year's top 20 in ticket sales. This was a notable improvement from 2024, which saw no purely original movies (not based on prior works) achieve similar success. The cultural impact of these films, particularly the new franchise and the revival, drove significant audience appeal.
Industry analysts suggest that the combination of targeted loyalty programs and a diverse range of films, including both established franchises and original content, helped to stabilize the movie theater industry after several challenging years. The ability of theaters to adapt to changing consumer habits and offer compelling experiences remains crucial for their continued success.
Multi-Source Journalism
This article synthesizes reporting from multiple credible news sources to provide comprehensive, balanced coverage.
Deep insights powered by AI
Continue exploring
A team of forecasters revisited 25 predictions made at the beginning of 2025, assessing their accuracy at year's end. Using probabilities to express confidence levels, they correctly predicted 19 outcomes, missed on 4, and found 2 to be unresolvable, achieving an 80% success rate. This exercise highlights the challenges and potential of predictive models in understanding future trends.
The Trump administration is significantly weakening federal data collection across sectors like environment, public health, and demographics, driven by ideological resistance and budget cuts. This degradation hinders scientific advancement, obscures economic realities, and undermines the ability to identify critical health trends, ultimately eroding public trust in institutions. The long-term impact will be a less informed and potentially more vulnerable society.
A Vox video recaps the tumultuous events of 2025, highlighting Trump's second term, the Epstein files release, and significant global political shifts. China's DeepSeek AI introduction also marked a turning point, while the year concluded with growing global unrest and US military actions.
Vox's Future Perfect team has released their annual predictions for the upcoming year, 2026, focusing on significant global events and trends. The forecasts, while incorporating probabilities to reflect confidence levels, lean towards potentially negative outcomes, including concerns about the state of democracy, economic stability, and international conflicts. The team aims for transparency in their predictions, acknowledging the limits of their knowledge and planning to assess their accuracy at the end of the year.
A shift away from reducing meat consumption is occurring despite previous trends driven by health, ethical, and environmental concerns. Plant-based meat sales are declining as some revert to meat-heavy diets, signaling a potential change in consumer priorities and industry growth. This challenges the once-promising trajectory of alternative protein sources like those from Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat.
The Duffer Brothers conclude the "Stranger Things" saga, delivering a finale that attempts to tie up loose ends while leaving some ambiguity, particularly regarding Eleven's fate and the significance of a mysterious rock. This ending marks a cultural moment, reminiscent of a shared viewing experience in a fragmented media landscape, sparking debate and speculation among fans about unresolved plot points and potential future narratives.
The creators of "Stranger Things" are addressing the backlash and review bombing following a recent episode featuring a character's coming out scene. They emphasize the scene's narrative importance and defend it as a planned development, highlighting the challenges of navigating audience reactions in the age of instant online feedback and its impact on creative expression.
Get ready for a shake-up at the CBS Evening News! New anchor Tony Dokoupil is promising a fresh approach, ditching the ivory tower perspective in favor of stories that resonate with everyday Americans, a move that could win back audience trust and reshape the network's cultural influence. Will this populist pivot be a ratings winner?
Following a devastating fire in Hong Kong, the Asian Film Awards have suspended competitive categories for its 19th edition, opting instead for a more somber event focused on special honors. This decision reflects the Hong Kong government's call for restraint in public celebrations as the region continues to recover from the tragedy. The move acknowledges the profound impact on the community and aligns with a broader cultural sensitivity in the wake of the disaster.
Researchers have developed random heteropolymers (RHPs) that mimic enzyme functions by strategically positioning functional monomers to create protein-like microenvironments. This innovative approach, inspired by metalloprotein active sites, allows for catalysis under non-biological conditions, demonstrating a new avenue for designing robust and versatile artificial enzymes with implications for industrial applications and sustainable chemistry.
Researchers have created a novel "chiral fermionic valve" that separates electrons based on their chirality using the quantum geometry of topological bands, eliminating the need for magnetic fields. This innovative device, made from single-crystal PdGa, spatially separates chiral currents with opposite orbital magnetizations, demonstrating quantum interference and opening new possibilities for advanced electronic devices.
In 2026, expect to see the rise of smaller, more efficient AI models challenging current Large Language Models, alongside advancements in gene editing therapies for rare diseases. A mission to collect samples from Phobos will also be a key event, while changes to US science policy under the Trump administration are expected to have a significant impact on the scientific community.
Discussion
Join the conversation
Be the first to comment