{"id":426612,"date":"2026-05-01T08:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/426612\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T08:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:08:08","slug":"action-movies-have-lost-some-box-office-punch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/426612\/","title":{"rendered":"Action movies have lost some box-office punch"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Hollywood’s summer movie season kicks off, cinema owners will be counting on the high-heeled women of The Devil Wears Prada 2<\/a> instead of \u2060cape-wearing superheroes to draw audiences to the cineplex.<\/p>\n

For the past two decades, the first weekend in May has featured a superhero movie or other high-octane adventure on the big screen.<\/p>\n

Walt Disney had planned to release Avengers: Doomsday in the slot this year.<\/p>\n

The studio said it needed more time to complete the Marvel film, and it swapped in The Devil Wears Prada 2, a comedy starring Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. <\/p>\n

Watch: A clip from The Devil Wears Prada 2<\/p>\n

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The move is expected to pay off with a strong opening for Prada 2, box office analysts in the US have said.<\/p>\n

It also coincides with a decline in box-office power for action films, according to an analysis of US and Canadian box-office receipts by TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Creutz said, Superman, F1, and other action\/adventure movies accounted for 35% of ticket sales from the top 100 films.<\/p>\n

That tied for the lowest share since 2010 and marked the third year in a \u200crow in the mid-30% range.<\/p>\n

Disney’s Marvel superhero movies \u2060and Universal’s Fast & Furious racing films, among others, attracted large audiences to cinemas in the 2010s.<\/p>\n

As recently as 2022, action movies brought in 56% of domestic box office dollars, lifted by Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick.<\/p>\n

The number of action films sent to cinemas has remained steady at about 25 annually for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAs recently as 2022, action movies brought in 56% of domestic box office dollars, lifted by Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick<\/p>\n

Part, but not all, of the sales decline may be related to lower quality, Creutz said.<\/p>\n

But even films with positive reviews from critics pulled in fewer box office dollars than in years past, he explained.<\/p>\n

“It \u200cappears audiences are no longer eager to see even good superhero films today as they were pre-pandemic,” Creutz said in a research note.<\/p>\n

Family films, by contrast, are on the rise, as are horror films.<\/p>\n

Recent hits have included Lilo & Stitch, Zootropolis \u20602, and The Super Mario Bros Galaxy Movie. <\/p>\n

\"The
\nThe Super Mario Bros Galaxy Movie has taken in $848 million around the world and counting<\/p>\n

Cinema owners say genre popularity is cyclical.<\/p>\n

The key to success, they believe, is a wide range of films throughout \u200cthe year.<\/p>\n

“We need more dramas and comedies,” said Greg Marcus, President and CEO of The Marcus Corporation, the operator of the \u2060fourth-largest cinema chain in \u200cthe US.<\/p>\n

“They say nobody goes to dramas or comedies anymore. It’s because they aren’t actually making anything [in those genres] to go to.”<\/p>\n

Action movies still pull in crowds.<\/p>\n

Box office analysts are bullish on summer releases, including Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Star Wars film The Mandalorian and Grogu, as well as the delayed Avengers: Doomsday, scheduled for December.<\/p>\n

The last Avengers movie, 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, generated $2.8 billion in global ticket \u2060sales to become the second-highest-grossing film of all time.<\/p>\n

Watch: The trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day<\/p>\n

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For Prada 2, cinemas in the US are selling purse-shaped popcorn buckets, offering themed cocktails and food such as Devil’s Chocolate Mousse, and placing ‘fashion emergency’ kiosks \u2060with mascara, lip gloss, and hairbrushes in lobbies.<\/p>\n

Prada 2 could make a case for more genre diversity at cinemas, said Shawn Robbins, Director of Movie Analytics for ticket seller Fandango and the founder and owner of Box Office Theory.<\/p>\n

He expects the film to bring in at least $70 million in domestic ticket sales this weekend, providing a strong start to the summer season that runs through to Labor Day (Monday, 7 September) in the US and typically accounts for 40% of the year’s box office dollars.<\/p>\n

Other analysts’ projections range as high as $100 million.<\/p>\n

“I guarantee there are a lot of people hoping it’s the new normal,” Robbins said, noting a desire for more \u200cfilms outside the action genre.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t have to be just one genre that launches moviegoing into a very lucrative season.”<\/p>\n

Source: Reuters<\/p>\n

Click here for more movie news.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Hollywood’s summer movie season kicks off, cinema owners will be counting on the high-heeled women of The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-426612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}