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Once upon a time, Warner Brothers was completely in the pits. 2024 was seen as a cavernous debacle for WB, having to endure a number of embarrassments like the box office failures of Joker: Folie à Deux and Furiosa, the flagrant dumpings of Juror #2 and The Alto Knights, plus David Zaslav‘s one-man crusade to be the most cartoonish of all the evil capitalists. People snickered at the notion that WB would ever recover in 2025, and to paraphrase Poe Dameron, somehow, they returned stronger than ever. Not only has WB been the most successful studio of the year by a landslide, but they’ve also achieved an unprecedented level of success by having six straight films earn at least $40 million domestically on their opening weekend, which has never happened before by any major studio in Hollywood history.
Warner Bros. Came Back With a Fierce Uppercut
In total, WB’s magical line-up includes A Minecraft Movie, Sinners, Final Destination: Bloodlines, F1, Superman, and most recently Weapons, each earning anywhere from $43.5 million to $162.7 million in their opening weekend alone. What’s most exciting about these films is that they’re such an eclectic motley crew, a grab bag of both the type of films we hope to be successful and the type of films that it seems we’ve grown tired of. This is a wide variety of genres that audiences find appealing, and even if not every film screams “quality art” in the true cinephile sense, they’re all part of a healthily balanced diet that Hollywood needs audiences to maintain in order to survive.
In a time when the theatrical box office seems to always be on life support and audiences are slowly growing tired of the same old major franchise films, it’s incredibly heartening to see that shift in consumer attitudes being reflected in this collection. We can glean many of the patterns of this new era of Hollywood, making this list not just a way for WB to gloat over their bottom line, but a valuable snapshot of where Hollywood could be going in the future that other studios should be taking note of.
Multiple New Box Office Trends Are Evident With These Films
Each of the kinds of films that contributed to this achievement tells a different story about what lessons Hollywood should take away. First off, there are at least two more traditional “franchise” films here that were fully expected to do well, with Superman and Final Destination: Bloodlines both being major new additions to beloved and usually popular series. Superman being this relatively successful is a possible sign that superhero fatigue still hasn’t fully set in yet (although The Fantastic Four: First Steps‘ numbers might be implying that more persuasively). The triple threat of Sinners, Bloodlines, and Weapons shows that horror movies are still just as bankable a genre as they ever have been.
At least three of these films have at least one major female lead that was prominently featured in the marketing, evidence that there’s still a tangible benefit to representation. Even if most people would claim that A Minecraft Movie was actually bad, it’s another sign that video game movies could be the next cash cow for Hollywood to start milking. F1 is an “old-school,” authentically made blockbuster that banks on the supernova star power of Brad Pitt to pull in audiences for a fairly predictable yet satisfying spectacle. But above all else, the most optimistic and promising thing to glean from this collection is that Hollywood’s best bet for the future might actually be that most mythical concept: original movies and letting authentic filmmakers be themselves.
Note to Major Studios: Let Your Filmmakers Cook!
Don’t let the toxic film bros on Letterboxd fool you; auteur theory could very well be the salvation that the American film industry needs. It’s not just prominent filmmakers being allowed to make their own films entirely the way they want to, even some of the franchise films on this list are made by filmmakers with distinct visions. The clearest example of this is Ryan Coogler cashing in his Marvel clout to get Sinners made and being rewarded with box office records being broken and many Oscar nominations expected in the near future. While F1 is still a glorified Formula One/Apple commercial, it was directed by Joseph Kosinski, the man who made Top Gun: Maverick one of the culturally biggest films in recent memory, who gives it an air of technical muscularity and kinetic force that overpowers its wishy-washy script. Superman is the goofy beacon of punk-rock hope and kindness that it is entirely because it’s James Gunn at the helm, and Weapons officially confirms that Zach Cregger now deserves a seat at the same table as Jordan Peele or Ari Aster as certified freakazoids of the future.
Say what you will about A Minecraft Movie, but it did let Jared Hess indulge in that kind of humor that only he seems to be able to successfully tap into, which lent that film a bit more personality than it otherwise would have had. Therein lies the secret sauce that Hollywood really needs to harness: letting major films with large (or even mid-size) budgets be made by filmmakers with the touch that only they have, while also leaving those filmmakers reasonably untouched by the powers that be.
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