More than half of top studios’ movies are existing IP

Hollywood’s franchise frenzy is only just beginning.

The 2024 box office has been inundated with sequels, prequels and remakes, with the top 10 titles of the year all coming from existing intellectual property. That trend will continue, and expand, in 2025.

The industry’s top studios are returning to familiar characters and settings to drive movie ticket sales, a strategy that is hardly new, but seems to be growing exponentially.

Looking at the current 2025 calendar, between 50% and 70% of the movies from the six major studios — Universal, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony and Lionsgate — will be related to existing IP. Of course, the 2025 slate is not totally set in stone and studios could add more non-franchise titles in the coming months and into next year.

“There’s been a recognition by studios that the known commodities are what most audiences gravitate toward,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

Of the top 20 highest-grossing domestic releases of 2024, only two are considered original content — Paramount’s “IF” and Neon’s “Longlegs.”

The rest are predominately sequels to major blockbuster features, new and old, or tied to a popular book (Sony’s “It Ends With Us”), television show (Universal’s “The Fall Guy”) or based on a popular historical figure (Paramount’s “Bob Marley: One Love”).

Even before Hollywood was disrupted by the pandemic and the meteoric rise of streaming content, the domestic box office was heavily reliant on franchise titles. For Universal, Warner Bros., Sony, Lionsgate, Paramount and 20th Century Fox (which had not yet merged with Disney), franchise films accounted for between 33% and 62% of total releases in 2019. Disney was the only outlier, with nine of its 10 films coming from established IP.

However, as consumers are becoming even more discerning about where and what they are spending their disposable income, studios have invested in flashy sequels, prequels and remakes.

This has become particularly apparent in the animation space, with 2024 entrants like Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” as well as Universal’s “Despicable Me 4” and “Kung Fu Panda 4.”

“Family audiences who utilize a budget-driven calculus when choosing whether or not to buy a movie ticket want the comfortability of the familiar on their side,” Dergarabedian said. “Notably, this trend seems to be creeping into all age demographics as adult audiences are also using this rationale.”

Just look at the last quarter of the year:

These kinds of titles have pushed the domestic box office to $6.3 billion through the first nine months of the year, according to Comscore, as “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2” and “Despicable Me 4” — plus some breakout hits — have helped buoy the box office.

While that’s a 11.3% drop from last year and lags 25% behind pre-pandemic levels, the haul is better than box office analysts had expected. The writers and actors strikes of 2023 stalled production and pushed a number of titles to later dates on the calendar, many of them to 2025, leaving the 2024 slate sparse.

“2025 will again be emblematic of the IP-and-nostalgia-driven status quo for Hollywood, but those aren’t necessarily dirty words,” said Shawn Robbins, founder and owner of Box Office Theory. “Some of the most well-received box office hits in recent memory have been sequels or films based on existing brands and there is still a variety of original content out there.”

While 2024 and 2025 boast franchise-rich movie slates, Wall Street doesn’t expect ticket sales to top $10 billion domestically until 2026. The domestic box office has not hit that benchmark since 2019, before the Covid pandemic. Last year, it raked in just over $9 billion.

The 2025 movie calendar wraps up with a third Avatar film in mid-December, meaning ticket sales will bleed into 2026. Then that summer starts with an Avengers team-up film, followed by a “Mandalorian” Star Wars movie over Memorial Day weekend. Another Star Wars film will round out Disney’s big year in December 2026.

Add in a second “Super Mario Bros. Movie,” a fifth “Toy Story,” a fifth “Shrek,” another Hunger Games film, a Supergirl flick, another Batman film from Matt Reeves and the likely release of a third “Dune” film and 2026 is on track for a staggering box office haul.

And, even as Hollywood’s biggest studios lean on familiar titles to entice audiences back into theaters, a number of non-franchise features have been standouts at the box office in recent years.

“Next year offers up new original films from filmmakers like Jordan Peele, Paul Thomas Anderson, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company, and Ryan Coogler, which could stand out in between a variety of franchise films,” Robbins said.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.