“Survive till ’25” has been the mantra of the movie theater business — heck, the entire film industry — ever since pandemic-related delays and Hollywood’s labor strikes wreaked havoc on studio slates and production calendars. Several would-be 2024 blockbusters, like Tom Cruise’s eighth “Mission Impossible” and Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World,” were pushed into this calendar year instead, providing 2025 with a profusion of movies that everyone hopes will claw the box office back to something approaching its pre-COVID glory.
Can Ethan Hunt, a smattering of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and a new generation of rogue dinosaurs come to the rescue? Will the star power of Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Dwayne Johnson help boost their risky original movies to fame and fortune? Variety peers into its crystal ball to forecast the year’s triumphs, misfires — and everything in between.
20th Century Studios
Avatar: Fire and Ash (Disney)
Release date: Dec. 19
Thrill factor: Three years ago, “Avatar: The Way of Water” grossed $2.3 billion and proved beyond a doubt that audiences remain insatiable for the sci-fi saga of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) on the alien moon of Pandora. Now James Cameron returns with the third chapter, which as the title implies, will introduce the “Ash People” clan of the Na’vi.
Chill factor: Maybe a three-year gap is too … short … for “Avatar” movies?
Verdict: Never bet against Cameron: Disney will put another $2 billion in the bank.
The Conjuring: Last Rites (Warner Bros.)
Release date: Sept. 5
Thrill factor: Across eight films, the “Conjuring” universe has quietly risen to become the highest-grossing horror franchise in history. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are back as ghost hunters for what’s billed as the final entry in the occult-tilted series.
Chill factor: Other than a few low-budget indie successes, 2024 was disappointing for movies about things that go bump in the night.
Verdict: Horror buffs will be summoned to “Conjuring 4” like an exorcism on Halloween night, making for scary-good profit margins.
Wicked: For Good (Universal)
Release date: Nov. 21
Thrill factor: Nothing is riskier than splitting a movie (a musical, no less!) in two, but “Wicked: Part One” beat the odds to become a big-screen smash. Fans won’t be able to resist the journey back to Oz for the conclusion of the story of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande).
Chill factor: The second act has showstoppers (“No Good Deed”) and tearjerkers (“For Good”) but the best, catchiest songs are in the first film.
Verdict: Like a seed dropped by a skybird, “Wicked” will go down as the biggest Broadway adaptation in box office history.
Zootopia 2 (Disney)
Release date: Nov. 26
Thrill factor: Zootopia Police Department’s finest rejoin forces for a sequel to 2016’s billion-dollar blockbuster.
Chill factor: Sequelitis can strike without warning. Just ask “Joker: Folie à Deux,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” or “The Marvels,” all of which were disappointing follow-ups to box office behemoths.
Verdict: “Zootopia 2” will give “Moana 2” — and its record-breaking Thanksgiving debut — a run for its money.
Universal / Courtesy Everett Collection
28 Years Later (Sony)
Release date: June 20
Thrill factor: Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland revisit the zombified United Kingdom of 2002’s “28 Days Later,” this time with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes running for their lives from the undead hordes.
Chill factor: With “The Walking Dead” and “The Last of Us” gobbling up audiences on TV, zombie movies have been a bit, well, lifeless of late.
Verdict: If the movie is even half as chilling as the utterly terrifying teaser trailer, then these zombies will scare up some tasty box office.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (Disney)
Release date: July 25
Thrill factor: Marvel’s First Family finally joins the MCU, with Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the titular superheroes living in a retro-futuristic Earth of the 1960s — and, pointedly, separate from Marvel Studios’ main timeline.
Chill factor: The previous “Fantastic 4” movies (from the 2000s and 2015) were less than inspiring, creatively and financially; audiences could shrug at this attempt to make the new foursome into movie stars.
Verdict: Marvel Studios’ next two “Avengers” outings will build directly from the events in this film, so, even more than most MCU fare, this one has to be a smash. Fortunately for Disney, it’s box office clobberin’ time.
Jurassic World Rebirth (Universal)
Release date: July 2
Thrill factor: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey take the reins of the 32-year-old franchise, playing a team tasked with retrieving material from dinosaurs that could be the key to a miracle cure. Gareth Edwards — who has fashioned a career helming handsomely mounted VFX movies like “Godzilla” and “The Creator” — directs.
Chill factor: There is a chance that, after three “Jurassic World” movies over the past 10 years, moviegoers may have grown sick of dinosaurs.
Verdict: C’mon. Audiences love dinos, and this movie and its fresh, talented cast will rampage through the box office again.
Michael (Lionsgate)
Release date: Oct. 3
Thrill factor: Musical biopics are all the rage, and everyone on the planet knows Michael Jackson’s deep catalog of hits. Plus, director Antoine Fuqua cast Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson to re-create the late King of Pop’s iconic performances.
Chill factor: Jackson is a divisive cultural figure, whose legacy has been tainted by multiple allegations that he sexually abused children for decades. (The musician denied any wrongdoing; a 1993 lawsuit involving the singer was settled out of civil court, and in 2005 he was tried and acquitted on different claims.) At the very least, “Michael” is guaranteed to spark conversation and scrutiny.
Verdict: Controversy surrounding Jackson’s legacy won’t matter to global audiences, and “Michael” will moonwalk to box office glory.
Warner Bros.
Good Fortune (Lionsgate)
Release date: Oct. 17
Thrill factor: Keanu Reeves, the internet’s boyfriend, plays a literal angel alongside Seth Rogen, Keke Palmer and Sandra Oh in the body-swap comedy from Aziz Ansari in his feature directorial debut.
Chill factor: Commercially successful R-rated comedies are almost as rare as the prospect of actually switching bodies with another person.
Verdict: Reviews will play a big part in how many tickets are sold. But “Good Fortune” could get a needed boost in attention if Palmer delivers on what she does best: Churning out meme-worthy moments on the press tour.
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning (Paramount)
Release date: May 23
Thrill factor: Tom Cruise’s death-defying stunts in his eighth go-around as the Impossible Mission Force’s most valuable agent offers the kind of cinematic spectacle that demands to be seen on the biggest possible screen.
Chill factor: “Mission: Impossible” proved all the ways that cutting a movie in half could go wrong. In 2023, “Dead Reckoning Part One” — what should have been a sure-fire hit after “Top Gun: Maverick” — was crushed by “Barbenheimer,” leading the studio to rename the follow-up film. “MI:7” cost nearly $300 million, and these action-adventures aren’t getting any cheaper to produce.
Verdict: Cruise’s (possible?) swan song as Ethan Hunt will pack cinemas in early summer, but “Mission: Impossible” won’t go out on a series high.
The Smashing Machine (A24)
Release date: Undated
Thrill factor: Dwayne Johnson steps back into the ring, not as the Rock, but as mixed martial artist Mark Kerr, in a biopic written and directed by indie auteur Benny Safdie (“Uncut Gems”).
Chill factor: The 52-year-old Johnson, who also produced the film, is just three years younger than Kerr, so it’s unclear whether ticket buyers will buy him as Kerr at his height in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Verdict: Johnson’s career has desperately needed this kind of role, his first dramatic one since 2013’s “Pain & Gain” — but the film’s success hangs on whether the actor can still deliver a grounded, emotionally complex performance.
Superman (Warner Bros.)
Release date: July 11
Thrill factor: James Gunn relaunches the Man of Steel and the DC Universe, with David Corenswet’s Superman living (for the first time on the big screen) on an Earth filled with other superheroes, not all of whom get along.
Chill factor: Comic book cinema isn’t nearly as bulletproof as it used to be, and the last solo-Supes flicks, 2013’s “Man of Steel,” was a gentleman’s triple. This film needs to be a home run.
Verdict: If Gunn can marry truth, justice and the American way to the outré sensibility that made the “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy a global sensation, then the DCU will be up, up and away.
Apple Original Films
F1 (Apple Original Films and Warner Bros.)
Release date: June 27
Thrill factor: Brad Pitt teams with “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer to play a retired Formula One driver recruited to mentor a hotshot new star (Damson Idris).
Chill factor: Apple’s track-record for expensive, star-driven theatrical releases is (checks notes) not a single profitable film. Not one.
Verdict: If Pitt, Kosinski, Bruckheimer and the global popularity of Formula One aren’t enough to give Apple its first win in theaters, then at least Tim Cook has iPhone 17 to look forward to.
Snow White (Disney)
Release date: March 21
Thrill factor: “West Side Story” star Rachel Zegler brings her killer pipes to the original Disney princess, with “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot playing against type as the Evil Queen.
Chill factor: The $240 million-budgeted adaptation has been dogged by expensive reshoots and calls for a boycott because of Zegler and Gadot’s (opposing) stances on the Israel-Hamas war, which maybe isn’t the thing everyone wants to think about when going to a Disney musical.
Verdict: After one too many revisits to the vault, families will tire of the Magic Kingdom’s latest live-action remake.
Tron: Ares (Disney)
Release date: Oct. 10
Thrill factor: The first two “Tron” movies were set almost exclusively inside the digital space known as the Grid, but this threequel from director Joachim Rønning (“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”) places Jared Leto’s titular living program in the real world.
Chill factor: Leto may be an Oscar winner, but he is not, to date, anything close to a box office draw, which Disney needs for a wildly sporadic sci-fi franchise that looks great but has never evinced overwhelming audience demand for more.
Verdict: Improving on the $410 million global gross of 2010’s “Tron: Legacy” will be as difficult as getting a perfect score in “Pac-Man.”
Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Film (Warner Bros.)
Release date: Aug. 8
Thrill factor: Paul Thomas Anderson — who’s created masterful works like “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia” and “Phantom Thread” — has recruited Leonardo DiCaprio, one of Hollywood’s last remaining bankable stars, to lead the buzzy cast of Sean Penn, Regina Hall and Alana Haim.
Chill factor: The film’s $140 million budget will require at least $300 million in global ticket sales to turn a profit theatrically. Anderson’s highest-grossing movie, 2007’s “There Will Be Blood,” made $76 million worldwide.
Verdict: The untitled project — reportedly a crime drama — will become a critical darling, but it won’t be in the race for the Golden Globe for cinematic and box office achievement.
