In 2025, Familiarity Breeds Content — And Lots of Money

 

 

 

By the time you read that number it will likely be increased by tens of thousands of dollars. But, what does it represent? The total box office gross of the top 25 films of 2025 (so far, through November 27 according to Box Office Mojo).

Here’s another number, about 10 times smaller, to put into relation with that:

 

 

 

This number is likely to remain the same by the time you read this. But before learning what that number represents, a quick Schoolhouse Rock-style history lesson is in order.

In the late 19^th century there was a mechanical engineer who studied activities in steel mills. Yes, steel mills. His work gave rise to an approach to making and doing things that resonate today in Hollywood. Really.

His name is Frederick W. Taylor. He performed time and work studies, which were the basis of his book The Principles of Scientific Management. What, you might wonder, does this have to do with movies?

Plenty.

What has become known as “Taylorism” is a practice based on scientific methods (e.g., time studies with a stopwatch; observational analysis of shoveling coal) so that there would be the determination of “one best way” of doing things. The whole notion of doing things based on rules of thumb or an ad hoc basis was considered wildly inefficient and as such eliminated. Figure out how to do it the “best” way and don’t deviate.

What Taylor built on was something developed in the late 18^th century by a man named Eli Whitney: interchangeable parts. If you’re making widget assemblies and each of the parts made for one assembly is the same as those for the others, there is interchangeability. Before Whitney codified this mechanical method widgets (and all other items) were made mainly by craftsmen. Consequently there were variations. You can’t have Tayloristic mass production when things and processes aren’t all the same.

Both what Taylor and Whitney did was illustrated in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, where man is just a cog in a machine. Do the same thing, the same way, every time.

So back to the $620,730,692. What is that figure?

That is the gross of the films that weren’t based on existing intellectual property — films that aren’t sequels, part of an existing franchise, remakes, predicated on a game or comic, or animated movies made into live action.

Of the top 25 there are just three: Sinners, Weapons, and F1: The Movie (and the last-named could be considered a commercial for Apple’s five-year media rights agreement with Formula 1 to stream the series races starting in 2026).

Every other movie on the list is based on IP that’s tried and true.

At the top of the list is A Minecraft Movie. Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time, with some 350 million copies sold.

Coming in second is the live-action remake of 2002’s Lilo & Stitch. Now while the original movie didn’t come close to the top-grossing movies of 2002 — a year that Included The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Spider-Man (yes, this use of existing IP is not new to 2025 by any means) — Disney has been shilling plenty of items based the characters in its parks, Target, and elsewhere.

And in third place is Superman. If we consider the first Christopher Reeve Superman (1978) as the start of the “modern era,” there have been four with Reeve, one with Brandon Routh, and one with Henry Cavill, although Cavill is also in Batman v. Superman and Justice League, so there’s still the IP. Now, of course, David Corenswet.

It could be argued that one of the purposes of the current Superman movie is to give a boost to next year’s Supergirl, which will be released during a summer that will also include The Mandalorian and Grogu, Masters of the Universe, Toy Story 5, Minions 3, Moana, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and going deep into the IP, The Odyssey.

Which brings us back to Taylor and Whitney.

The amount of money necessary to create what is intended to be a blockbuster is at least on the order of $250 million or more. Consequently, studios — and all the majors are carrying debt on their books — are loath to take risks, which means they feel more comfortable going with characters that have an established fan base (even if The Minecraft Movie turned out horribly, given the number of players, if only a fraction bought tickets, Warner Bros. would have still been OK), and marketing costs are less than trying to position something new (people wandering around Walt Disney World for the past few years wearing Stitch hats provides built-in marketing for the movie — and Disney makes money by selling the hats, too).

Characters become interchangeable parts and there is little deviation from the process established over the years (e.g., there have been seven Jurassic Park movies, and while, obviously, they all have dinosaurs, they also all have the original message of don’t fuck with nature). Whitney and Taylor smile and the studios make bank.

Originality? Who needs it? Evidently not Hollywood, nor the movie-going public.