As long as there has been a motion picture industry, it seems, the summer blockbuster season has been the important period for the industry. After all, that's when much of the moviegoing public -- particularly the young portion of it -- has the time and inclination to consume films in air-conditioned cinemas.
So for top movie exhibitor AMC Entertainment (AMC -0.53%), it's essential for investors to review the summer domestic box office sales. Attendance during the warm months can make the difference between an uninspiring and a great year for the entertainment company.
Image source: Getty Images.
Box office boom or bust?
We're almost at the end of said season, which although it has no formally defined borders is generally considered to stretch from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Happily, the latter is about to hit us, so we should get the trends and statistics from full summer blockbuster 2025 very soon.
The executive summary is that, for AMC stockholders and other proponents of the cinema business, it's not looking boffo but it's not bad either. According to BoxOfficeMojo.com -- a fine source for data like this, by the way -- so far, total movie ticket sales in America during the summer season stand at just under $3.5 billion, which is within striking distance of the final tally of $3.63 billion for the 2024 period.
This season almost definitely won't, however, top the slightly over $4 billion of 2023, the No. 1 summer period of this decade until now. Then again, that year featured very strong entries in both continuing franchises and existing intellectual property getting the Hollywood treatment.
In the former category, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was the superhero winner from Sony's Columbia Pictures. It grossed more than $381 million. This was trailed closely by Walt Disney's Marvel unit's release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which took in a cool $359 million in revenue across those hot summer weeks.
But the box office champ over that stretch was the toy-to-big-budget-film transformation of Barbie. A successful teaming of Mattel's perky doll with Warner Bros Discovery's distribution savvy, the film grossed over $612 million in ticket sales.
This summer season, there have been fewer franchise films. This can dampen box office take, as franchises like Spider-Man or the Guardians are already familiar intellectual property. They therefore have, at least theoretically, a built-in audience.
Summer 2025 is a bit of an outlier that features a smattering of fresh, relatively daring properties drawing business at movie theaters.
For example, Sinners, an offbeat blend of supernatural horror and period musical drama, cracked the top 10 by drawing almost $132 million in ticket sales. Another original, auto-racing saga, F1: The Movie starring Brad Pitt, earned more than $186 million. Warner Bros Discovery investors will be happy to learn that their company also distributed those two offerings.
Balancing act
Looking at those numbers and the list of films that raked it in, I'd say the production and distribution ends of the movie business are feeding exhibitors like AMC well.
They seem to be finding a good balance of new intellectual property attractive enough for the summer audience and installments of reliable franchises. And while 2025 probably won't set a record for this decade, it shows that there's still plenty of appeal for what Hollywood's dishing up. Also, many consumers still prefer the cinema experience rather than a living-room watch on a streaming service.
Ultimately, then, I think the foundation of AMC's business is more solid than many movie lovers -- and not a few investors -- fear these days. I think its stock is well worth considering as a buy.
