Planning the movie release calendar is tricky business, especially at a time when audience habits are changing. The situation for viewers and theaters is healthiest when there are a variety of new releases playing at any given time, but with the number of productions declining and costs rising post-pandemic, distributors are generally more competition-averse. If a big-budget tentpole can’t afford to be a second or third choice at the box office, best to spread things out from each other.
The exception to that seems to be around prime times of year, when the perceived potential for bigger audiences outweighs the desire to avoid risk. This year, along with a late-December full of movies trying to be the alternative to Avatar: Fire & Ash, that makes for a pretty dense November. Every week has at least one major blockbuster, alongside a smattering of star-driven, prestige titles and genre plays – if you’re into movies, it should be an exciting month.
October, however, was a dud; according to Cinelytic, the October 2025 box office was the lowest in that frame since 1997. There are several reasons for that, including the worrying underperformance of adult-targeted, awardsy dramas (which, per Deadline, traces back to poor reception from audiences more so than any broader industry trend), but the absence of headliner releases certainly played a role.
Was Hollywood Right To Leave Holes In October?
November can’t be blamed for all of October’s problems. The spookiest month of the year was conspicuously light on major horror movies, and the one that did come out, Blumhouse’s Black Phone 2, is one of this month’s few box office hits. 2025 has been a great year for the genre, and if a couple of those films had been held for October, the box office surely wouldn’t have been so bleak.
But it’s hard to argue with any of those scheduling decisions. The five highest-grossing horror movies of the year domestically – Sinners, The Conjuring: Last Rites, Weapons, Final Destination: Bloodlines, and 28 Years Later – all released in different months throughout the year. Any one of them could’ve done well in October, but in almost all of these cases, they set records where they were placed.
The first four of those were also all Warner Bros. releases, so there was no chance they were going to be crowded together. And, crucially, they originally had Mortal Kombat 2 dated for October. Given that it remains one of the movies people most want to see in a theater, that film would’ve really given the box office some life, but it was reportedly moved to shore up 2026 after Superman‘s success put them firmly in the black this fiscal year. From October’s perspective, that was just bad luck.
Now, it’s up to November’s movies to justify themselves the way WB’s horror films have. And that could prove tricky.
Wicked: For Good (November 21) and Zootopia 2 (November 26) are in good shape – their releases around Thanksgiving repeat a time-tested strategy, and neither would ever dream of shifting off their spot. The bigger question marks for that window are action sequel Sisu 2: Road to Revenge, Brendan Fraser vehicle Rental Family, and A24 fantasy rom-com Eternity, any of which might have found themselves with more territory had they released a month prior.
Predator: Badlands (November 7) was likely locked into its IMAX date and distanced from both Tron: Ares (also a Disney film) and Mortal Kombat 2, with not enough time to negotiate a shift earlier after that film moved in September. Unfortunate, because it probably stood to benefit the most of any major November release. Predator fits in October, and its sci-fi monster violence might’ve satisfied the horror itch that was mostly missing. It could’ve cruised along for weeks with a nice runway before anything similar cut into its audience.
As it stands, Predator has just one week before the double-header of The Running Man and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t on November 14. It’s this trio that will likely cause the most regret in retrospect. Hopefully, there’s enough room in audiences’ wallets to check them all out, but the films are more than likely in for an intense fight that, given how the previous month went, didn’t need to happen.
If November’s high level of competition ends up hurting these movies, it might be time for Hollywood to rethink how it approaches October. If horror can do well when spread throughout the year and adult dramas can’t take advantage of the empty space to catch fire, it might not be necessary to crowd the last two months of the year with tentpoles.
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