Bob Mondello

The biggest blockbusters were primarily remakes and sequels, and PG-rated films aimed at families continued to do better than any other genre.

It's the Wicked Wife!

2025's film took in a combined $8.87 billion in North American cinemas.

Holidays, including a terrific Christmas season, did relatively well, but cinemas sat mostly empty other times of the year, including through one of the worst Octobers in a decade.

That has cinema owners experimenting with alternative attractions, like the two-hour Stranger Things finale, which sold more than 1.1 million tickets over the holidays.

Bob Mondello, NPR News.

Marty Supreme is an American film that comes out on Christmas Day.

Film industry observers are pretty good at estimating how movies will do at the box office.

They crunch advertising, exit polls, social media reach.

But how do you crunch a publicity stunt?

Avatar Fire and Ash was always expected to lead Christmas week.

And Timothee Chalamet's ping-pong movie, Marty Supreme, It's only a matter of time before I'm staring at you from the cover of a Wheaties box.

was expected to fall in the middle of the also-rans.

Instead, it's leading the also-rans, at least partly because earlier this week, looking terrified, Chalamet climbed atop the 366-foot-high Las Vegas Sphere to yell, Marty Supreme is an American film that comes out on Christmas Day!

The sphere then lit up like a giant orange ping pong ball.

The stunt went viral online, and about a million people have already seen Marty Supreme.

Bob Mondello, NPR News.

The Avatar threequel is definitely dominating the weekend at cinemas.

But it's not hot enough to be setting records.

At $88 million for its first three days in North America and another $257 million overseas,