The 2025 summer movie season is on a hot streak as fans flock to theaters in numbers reminiscent of pre-pandemic days. The season, which officially began the first weekend in May and extends until Labor Day, has already generated $2.3 billion in the domestic box-office receipts this summer alone, per Box Office Mojo, and it’s far from over.
Blockbusters like “A Minecraft Movie,” $423.9 million, and “Lilo and Stitch,” $416.2 million, have helped the industry climb in earnings in 2025, per Box Office Mojo.
Current total domestic box-office earnings for 2025 have reached just over $4.5 billion, a 240.6% increase from 2021, as reported by The Numbers
Meanwhile, “F1,” starring Brad Pitt, “Superman,” directed by James Gunn and “Jurassic World: Rebirth” are still drawing crowds into theaters and more releases are on the horizon.
“The summer of ‘25 has had almost everything working in its favor. From a Marvel movie to kick off the summer followed by a record-breaking Memorial weekend and from start to finish a relentless onslaught of potential hit films week after week, that the summer season is well positioned to hit the $4 billion mark, (the pre-pandemic standard) is no box office pipe dream,” said Beam’s Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian about the summer’s box office success, as reported by Deadline.
“With a frequency and cadence of appealing films opening week after week with one of the best overall studio lineups ever to land in the all-important 18 weeks of the summer movie season, it should come as no surprise that by the time Labor Day Monday rolls around that the industry will have banked $4 billion-plus.”
Here are the blockbusters closing the curtain on summer movie season.
‘Smurfs’
Rating: PG
Release date: July 18
The latest movie installment of the classic 1981 TV series, “The Smurfs,” finds evil wizard Gargamel back to his old antics, but this time his brother Razamel is in on the mischief. After the brothers capture Papa Smurf, Smurfette must lead a mission to the real world to rescue him.
‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’
Rating: PG-13
Release date: July 25
Set in a 1960s “retro-futuristic world,” The Fantastic Four must defend Earth from cosmic space god Galactus. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm face the challenge of balancing the strength of their family bond with their roles as Earth’s heroes, per IMDb.
‘The Bad Guys 2′
Rating: PG
Release date: July 30
After finally being caught after years of crime, Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Shark and Ms. Tarantula must pull off one of their toughest cons yet, to become standup citizens. The group sets off to convince the rest of the world that they’ve had a change of heart, but do they succeed?
‘Freakier Friday’
Rating: PG
Release date: Aug. 8
Twenty-two years after their identity swap, Tess and Anna are back. This time Anna has a daughter and soon-to-be stepdaughter and is learning how to bring two families together. In the midst of their family merge, the original mother-daughter duo “discover that lightning might strike twice,” according to IMDb.