Tom Cruise, Superman and 'Avatar' Hold Keys to 2025 Box Office

FILE PHOTO: Paris 2024 Olympics - Ceremonies - Paris 2024 Closing Ceremony - Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France - August 11, 2024. Actor Tom Cruise jumps from the roof of the Stade de France during the closing ceremony. REUTERS/Phil Noble/File Photo

Asharq Al Awsat

10:15-21 March 2025 AD ـ 21 Ramadan 1446 AH

Asharq Al Awsat

10:15-21 March 2025 AD ـ 21 Ramadan 1446 AH

Tom Cruise, Superman and 'Avatar' Hold Keys to 2025 Box Office

Tom Cruise takes on what may be his final "Mission: Impossible," a new Superman will wear the red cape, and the record-setting "Avatar" sci-fi series will return to movie theaters this year.
Those films and more are giving cinema operators hope that the long recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic will continue in 2025. Five years after the start of the health crisis, moviegoing has not fully rebounded.
Box office receipts totaled $8.6 billion last year in the United States and Canada, 25% below the pre-pandemic heights of $11.4 billion in 2019, Reuters reported.
The film industry was disrupted again in 2023 when Hollywood writers and actors went on strike.
"That complex matrix of filmmaking, where everyone wants the best talent and the best actors and the best sets, it takes a long time to get that running again," said Tim Richards, founder and CEO of Europe's Vue Cinemas. "2025 is going to feel the tail end of that."
Top names in the movie business will gather at the annual CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas early next month to talk about the state of the industry.
The conference draws executives from Hollywood studios and multiplex operators such as AMC Entertainment, Cinemark and Cineworld as well as owners of single theaters in small towns.
At the Academy Awards this month, "Anora" filmmaker and best director winner Sean Baker delivered a "battle cry" for filmmakers, distributors and audiences to support theaters.
"The theater-going experience is under threat," he said, noting that the number of screens shrunk during the pandemic.
"If we don't reverse this trend, we'll be losing a vital part of our culture," Baker added.
Shawn Robbins, Director of Movie Analytics at Fandango and founder and owner of Box Office Theory, said the movie business was adjusting to "a new normal."
"Event movies are increasingly drivers of the business," Robbins said. "There's even more weight on their shoulders in terms of box office dollars."
Moviegoers still turn out for big-budget films, Robbins said, but have shown they are happy to wait to watch others at home.
"It is very common knowledge that a lot of movies will be available to stream within three to eight weeks, whereas it used to be a minimum of three months," he said.
'AVATAR' AS TIPPING POINT?
Among the big hitters coming to theaters this year are "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning," a movie that may be Cruise's last appearance in the long-running action franchise. "One last time," he says in the trailer. The film will debut over the US Memorial Day weekend in May, along with Walt Disney's live-action version of animated classic "Lilo & Stitch."
Brad Pitt plays a Formula 1 driver in the June release "F1," and in July, Warner Bros will release its new "Superman" movie directed by "Guardians of the Galaxy" filmmaker James Gunn and starring David Corenswet.
From Marvel, the anti-hero team "Thunderbolts" will kick off the summer moviegoing season in early May, followed by "The Fantastic Four" in late July.
Around the November and December holidays, offerings include the second part of musical box office phenomenon "Wicked," animated sequel "Zootopia 2" and "Avatar: Fire and Ash," the third film in James Cameron's "Avatar" series. The first "Avatar" is the highest-grossing movie of all time, and the second movie ranks third.
Robbins projected 2025 would end with a slight increase in domestic box office receipts compared with last year, "maybe flirting with $9 billion." He said it is unclear when ticket sales will return to pre-pandemic levels.
Richards said he believed the new "Avatar" would kick off "an extraordinary three to five years" for cinemas.
"We're going to see (Avatar) as the tipping point," Richards said. "2026 has got an extraordinary number of great films."

Spotify Reaches 761 Mn Active Users

The Spotify logo is pictured at the 77th Frankfurt book fair, the world's biggest trade fair for books, in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany on October 17, 2025. (AFP)

11:49-28 April 2026 AD ـ 11 Thul-Qi’dah 1447 AH

Spotify Reaches 761 Mn Active Users

The Spotify logo is pictured at the 77th Frankfurt book fair, the world's biggest trade fair for books, in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany on October 17, 2025. (AFP)

Music streaming giant Spotify said Tuesday that first-quarter revenue rose as its number of monthly active users reached 761 million at the end of the quarter, with the number of paying subscribers hitting 293 million.

The result was just above the company's guidance of 759 million monthly active users (MAU), while the number of paying subscribers was in line with its guidance.

"We surpassed 760 million MAU, delivered on the subscriber growth we aimed to achieve, and saw healthy engagement from existing users, reactivations and new users alike," co-chief executive Alex Norstrom said in a statement.

Spotify founder Daniel Ek left the role as CEO at the start of 2026, handing over the reins to co-CEOs Norstrom and Gustav Soderstrom.

But Ek retains an active role as executive chairman.

Revenue for the first quarter came in at 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), up eight percent from a year earlier.

Operating income meanwhile rose 40 percent to 715 million euros.

Looking forward, the company said it expected to reach 778 million MAUs and 299 paying subscribers by the end of April.

Entertainment

Kimmel Says His Joke Was Misconstrued, Trump Says ABC Should Fire Late-Night Host

US television host Jimmy Kimmel arrives for "An Evening With Jimmy Kimmel" at the Roosevelt hotel in Hollywood on August 7, 2019. (AFP)

07:52-28 April 2026 AD ـ 11 Thul-Qi’dah 1447 AH

Kimmel Says His Joke Was Misconstrued, Trump Says ABC Should Fire Late-Night Host

US television host Jimmy Kimmel arrives for "An Evening With Jimmy Kimmel" at the Roosevelt hotel in Hollywood on August 7, 2019. (AFP)

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday his joke about US first lady Melania Trump had been misconstrued and was not a "call to assassination."

Kimmel used the opening monologue of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" to address comments made last Thursday in a parody segment on the White House correspondents' dinner.

He said his quip that Melania Trump had "a glow like an expectant widow," referred to the difference is ages of the first lady and her husband, President Donald Trump.

"It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am," Kimmel said. "It was not by any stretch of the definition a call to assassination."

Earlier in the day, Trump said Kimmel should immediately be fired by ABC and parent company Walt Disney, joining his wife in calling out Kimmel for remarks made prior to a shooting near a weekend gathering of journalists and politicians.

The Trumps were rushed out of Saturday's dinner ‌after the shooting in the ‌lobby of the Washington Hilton. A suspect identified as Cole Allen charged through a checkpoint and ‌fired ⁠at Secret Service ⁠agents, wounding one, before he was subdued and arrested.

Trump has repeatedly urged broadcasters to drop comedy or news programs he dislikes or which have been critical of him, pressing regulators to revoke licenses of broadcasters he says are unfair to him.

Broadcasters have broad First Amendment rights to make jokes, however, even those that are distasteful, experts say.

Melania Trump called Kimmel's remarks "corrosive" and a symptom of what she described as a political sickness in the United States.

"I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject," Kimmel said. "I do, and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it."

The comedian played a clip of a ⁠CBS News' "60 Minutes" Sunday interview in which Trump called senior correspondent Norah O'Donnell "a disgrace" for reading ‌an excerpt from the alleged gunman's writings and seeking a response.

The issue poses an ‌early test for Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro, who took the reins last month.

"Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. ‌How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community," Melania Trump said in a post ‌on X. "People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate."

Donald Trump, who previously called for Kimmel to be removed from the air, said the comedian's joke was "something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC."

Kimmel expressed sympathy for Melania Trump, and those who attended Saturday's event, for enduring the traumatic incident. But he rejected the notion that a joke, delivered three days earlier, "had ‌any effect on anything that happened."

Reaction elsewhere to the remarks was mixed.

"Disney and ABC are extremely lucky that Trump wasn't assassinated on Saturday two days after Jimmy Kimmel made ⁠the joke about an 'expectant widow,'" said Todd ⁠Doten, 57, a street vendor on Hollywood Boulevard.

"If that had happened, there would be a backlash against them the likes (of which) they've never seen before."

Dee Thompson, a 64-year-old from North Carolina, worried about the free speech risks if Kimmel should lose his job. "They're going to take away freedom of speech for a lot of comedians, you know," Thompson added.

FCC PRESSURE ON BROADCASTERS

In September of last year, the head of the Federal Communications Commission pressured broadcasters to take Kimmel off the air. ABC briefly suspended Kimmel's show that month over comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Hours before the suspension, FCC head Brendan Carr warned that local broadcasters who aired Kimmel could face fines or loss of licenses and said, "it's time for them to step up."

His comments drew pushback from the entertainment industry and politicians on both stripes, including Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who likened Carr's threats to those of an organized-crime boss.

Trump, the subject of two prior assassination attempts, has repeatedly attacked the media and threatened broadcast licenses. Trump had praised Kimmel's suspension in September.

Entertainment

Summer Movie Preview: Nolan, Spider-Man and ‘Toy Story’ Light Up the Cinemas

This image released by Universal Pictures shows, from left, Jimmy Gonzales ia Cepheus, Matt Damon as Odysseus and Himesh Patel as Eurylochus in a scene from "The Odyssey." (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures via AP)

17:00-27 April 2026 AD ـ 10 Thul-Qi’dah 1447 AH

Summer Movie Preview: Nolan, Spider-Man and ‘Toy Story’ Light Up the Cinemas

The movies always feel bigger in the summer. The budgets. The ambition. The names. The stakes. This summer, Hollywood has many of the regulars on the lineup: “Spider-Man,” “Minions,” “Star Wars” and “Toy Story.” But the most eagerly anticipated is not a superhero, toy, or franchise: It’s a 3,000-year-old epic poem.

For filmmaker Christopher Nolan, “The Odyssey,” out July 17, isn't just a story. It's the story: A foundational piece that deserved to be done on the biggest possible scale, with all the resources modern Hollywood had to offer.

“There’s a massive amount of pressure,” Nolan told The Associated Press. “Anyone taking on ‘The Odyssey’ is taking on the hopes and dreams of people for epic movies everywhere and that comes with a huge responsibility.”

It's a familiar feeling, though. He did three Batman films after all.

“What I learned from that experience is that what people want from a movie about a beloved story, a beloved set of characters, is they want a strong and sincere interpretation,” Nolan said. “They want to know that a filmmaker has gone to the mat for it. I really tried to make the best film possible.”

Three summers ago, “Oppenheimer” made nearly a billion dollars. “The Odyssey” has battles, creatures and an army of movie stars — Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Tom Holland included. It's also the first movie shot entirely on IMAX film. Tickets for some IMAX 70 mm showings sold out in under an hour a full year in advance.

“The Odyssey” will be shorter than “Oppenheimer”; Three hours is the longest they’ve been able to get onto an IMAX film projector, after all.

“It’s an epic film, as the subject matter demands,” Nolan said. “But it is shorter.”

Summer movie season's fashionable kickoff

Hollywood may not save all its blockbusters for the hottest months anymore, but the 18-week corridor running from the first weekend in May through Labor Day remains the industry’s most important, accounting for around 40% of the year’s box office. And it's only surpassed $4 billion once since the pandemic, in 2023.

Marvel movies often kick off the season, but last year filmmaker David Frankel got a call from Disney: “Avengers: Doomsday” wasn’t going to be ready by the first weekend in May; Could “The Devil Wears Prada 2” step up?

May 1 is just days before the Met Gala and it would give the movie a long runway to play, he figured. It would also require a bit of a sprint — they finished the film just weeks ago. But the enthusiasm was motivating, from fans snapping photos of Hathaway and Meryl Streep on the New York streets, to support from Anna Wintour.

Love for “Prada” isn’t the only thing that’s changed in 20 years; Magazines have also become an endangered species.

“How does Miranda Priestly deal with this changing world and what’s her future?” Frankel said. “The same with Andy Sachs: If all your ambition has been funneled in this one direction, what happens when you have to pivot and how do you adapt?”

The $4 billion question

The movie industry is also adjusting to a new paradigm. Box office is down over 20% from pre-COVID levels. The rise in streaming, the pandemic and shifting theatrical windows altered people’s moviegoing habits, perhaps permanently. And there may be one less major studio if Paramount acquires Warner Bros.

But, as James Cameron said, “hope springs eternal.

“We still have a very robust theatrical industry at a time when it was kind of almost pronounced dead,” Cameron said.

The gap is not widening. Studios are committing to longer exclusive theatrical windows. Original movies and premium formats are drawing crowds. And the market continues to expand globally.

Cameron is behind one of those only-in-a-theater experiences with the 3D Billie Eilish concert film (May 8). Using new technology, they used 17 camera systems to capture four nights of her Manchester shows last year.

“Seeing it in 3D is astonishing,” Cameron said. “You really feel an intimacy with her and yet you feel the scale of the spectacle.”

A summer for heavyweights

Nolan isn’t Universal’s only giant of cinema on its summer roster: Steven Spielberg is also returning to one of his most beloved genres with “Disclosure Day” (June 12). There are superhero movies as well, with “Supergirl” (June 26), which DC Studios co-head Peter Safran said is “is something cool and original and we haven’t seen before,” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” (July 31). The last Spidey film, which made over $1.9 billion, ended with Holland’s Peter Parker erasing himself from everyone’s memory.

“This is a blockbuster action movie with all the humor and emotion we love about Spider-Man,” director Destin Daniel Cretton said. “But at its heart, it’s a story about learning how to reconnect with the ones you love.”

A lot of power recently has shifted to PG-rated offerings. This summer has “Toy Story 5” (June 19), “Minions & Monsters” (July 1) and a live action “Moana” (July 10), which could all very well hit a billion dollars each.

One non-franchise family friendly film is “The Sheep Detectives” (May 8), in which the animals (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston) investigate the death of their beloved owner (Hugh Jackman). Writer Craig Mazin understands the hurdle: There have been a lot of stupid talking animal movies. But this one is different, he said, it's not just silly sheep doing silly things.

“There are some really beautiful moments and themes and things that parents can talk about with their kids,” Mazin said. “And most importantly, it is legitimately a movie that is meant for everyone.”

Then there's “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” (May 22), which is rated PG-13 but has an impossibly cute alien going for it. It’s also one of several made for IMAX.

“People have got great TVs at home,” said director Jon Favreau. “You’ve got to give them a reason to go out.”

The scary movies

Movie studios also continue to lean into horror and this summer has both franchises, like “Evil Dead Burn”(July 10) and “Insidious: Out of the Further” (Aug. 21) and unnerving indies, including the “conversion therapy” horror “Leviticus,” “Rose of Nevada” (both June 19), and “Backrooms” (May 29).

And then there is “Scary Movie 6" (June 5), which sees the return of Regina Hall and Anna Faris, as well as Marlon and Shawn Wayans, who haven't been involved in the franchise they helped create since the 2001 sequel. And there were so many movies ripe for parody, like “M3GAN,” “Get Out,” “Weapons,” the just-released “Michael,” and “Sinners,” which Marlon Wayans was most excited about.

“Mockery is the greatest form of flattery,” Wayans said. “Sending up their movie was definitely tipping our hat to them.”

The festival darlings and other gems

Audiences want more than brands and blockbusters though. This year moviegoers have already proven they’ll turn out when the buzz is right, whether it’s for a big crowd pleaser like “Project Hail Mary” or for something more challenging like “The Drama.”

One that has the potential to break through is Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” (June 26), a chamber dramedy about two very different couples (Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton) over one night that sparked a bidding war at the Sundance Film Festival. Wilde was heartened that most studios were offering theatrical releases, and ultimately chose A24. They’ve even made a 35 mm print.

“The whole project for me is really tipping my hat to Mike Nichols,” Wilde said. “We thought of the audiences that have always loved those films.”

There are plenty of indies and originals to choose from throughout the summer, including Daniel Roher’s “Tuner,” about a piano prodigy turned safecracker, Boots Riley’s colorful shoplifting movie “I Love Boosters,” (both May 22) and a John Carney musical with Paul Rudd (“Power Ballad,” June 5).

As Wilde said, there’s room for both originals and franchises.

“The audience really likes to recognize risk,” she said. “There’s something exciting about that.”

Tom Cruise, Superman and 'Avatar' Hold Keys to 2025 Box Office

Tom Cruise, Superman and 'Avatar' Hold Keys to 2025 Box Office

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Spotify Reaches 761 Mn Active Users

Spotify Reaches 761 Mn Active Users

Kimmel Says His Joke Was Misconstrued, Trump Says ABC Should Fire Late-Night Host

Kimmel Says His Joke Was Misconstrued, Trump Says ABC Should Fire Late-Night Host

Summer Movie Preview: Nolan, Spider-Man and ‘Toy Story’ Light Up the Cinemas

Summer Movie Preview: Nolan, Spider-Man and ‘Toy Story’ Light Up the Cinemas

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