Hollywood’s franchise frenzy: More than half of 2025 films from major studios are existing IP

Hollywood’s franchise frenzy is just beginning.

The 2024 box office was flooded with sequels, prequels and remakes, with the year’s top 10 titles coming from existing intellectual property. This trend will continue and expand in 2025.

The industry’s top studios are returning to familiar characters and settings to boost movie ticket sales, a strategy that isn’t new but appears to be growing exponentially.

Looking at the current calendar of 2025, between 50% and 70% of films from the six major studios — Universal, Disney, Warner Bros., Supreme, Sony and Lionsgate — will be related to existing IP. Of course, the 2025 forecast isn’t completely set in stone and studios could add more non-franchise titles in the coming months and next year.

“There is a recognition by studios that known commodities are what attract the majority of audiences,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

Of the 20 highest-grossing domestic releases in 2024, only two are considered original content – ​​Paramount’s “IF” and Neon’s “Longlegs.”

The rest are predominantly sequels to blockbusters, new and old, or tied to a popular book (“Sony’s It Ends With Us”), television show (“Universal’s The Fall Guy”) or based on a historical figure. popular (“Paramount’s The Fall Guy”). Bob Marley: One Love”).

Even before Hollywood was disrupted by the pandemic and the meteoric rise of streaming content, the domestic box office relied heavily on franchise titles. For Universal, Warner Bros., Sony, Lionsgate, Paramount and 20th Century Fox (which had not yet merged with Disney), franchise films represented between 33% and 62% of total releases in 2019. Disney was the only exception, with nine of its 10 films coming from established IP.

However, as consumers become even more discerning about where and how they spend their disposable income, studios have been investing in flashy sequels, prequels and remakes.

This has become particularly apparent in the animation space, with 2024 entrants like Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” as well as Universal’s “Despicable Me 4” and “Kung Fu Panda 4.”

“Family audiences who use a budget-based calculation when choosing whether or not to buy a movie ticket want the comfort of a family member by their side,” said Dergarabedian. “Notably, this trend appears to be infiltrating demographics of all ages, as adult audiences are also using this reasoning.”

Just look at the last quarter of the year:

These types of titles boosted domestic box office grosses to $6.3 billion in the first nine months of the year, according to Comscore, such as “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2” and “Despicable Me 4” — in addition to some big hits -. helped boost the box office.

While that’s an 11.3% drop from last year and 25% below pre-pandemic levels, the result is better than box office analysts expected. The 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes halted production and pushed a number of titles to later dates on the calendar, many of them to 2025, leaving the 2024 slate thin.

“2025 will once again be emblematic of the intellectual property- and nostalgia-driven status quo for Hollywood, but those aren’t necessarily bad words,” said Shawn Robbins, founder and owner of Box Office Theory. “Some of the best-received blockbusters in recent memory have been sequels or films based on existing brands and there is still a variety of original content out there.”

While 2024 and 2025 feature franchise-rich film slates, Wall Street doesn’t expect ticket sales to surpass $10 billion domestically until 2026. The domestic box office hasn’t reached that figure since 2019, before the Covid pandemic. Last year, it raised just over $9 billion.

The 2025 movie calendar ends with a third Avatar movie in mid-December, meaning ticket sales will bleed until 2026. Then the summer begins with an Avengers team-up movie, followed by a “Mandalorian” movie from Star Wars on Memorial Day Weekend Another Star Wars film will cap off Disney’s big year in December 2026.

Add a second “Super Mario Bros. Movie”, a fifth “Toy Story”, a fifth “Shrek”, another Hunger Games film, a Supergirl film, another Matt Reeves Batman film and the likely release of a third “Dune” film and 2026 is on the way an impressive box office.

And even as Hollywood’s biggest studios rely on family-friendly titles to lure audiences back to theaters, several non-franchise films have excelled at the box office in recent years.

“Next year offers new original films from filmmakers like Jordan Peele, Paul Thomas Anderson, JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot production company and Ryan Coogler, which could stand out among a variety of franchise films,” said Robbins.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.