Franchise filmmaking has long been Hollywood’s safest bet. In theory, sequels, remakes, and reboots should minimize risk by drawing on built-in fan bases. In practice, however, the strategy is showing cracks. Of the 26 movies that cleared $20 million in North American ticket sales this summer, 20 were part of a franchise. Yet more than half of these returning titles earned less than their predecessors.
The pattern was visible across multiple properties. Jurassic World: Rebirth lagged behind earlier installments of the dinosaur saga. Marvel’s Thunderbolts could not match the momentum of the studio’s earlier summer entries. Even Warner’s Superman, though it brought in about $352 million domestically, fell short of 2013’s Man of Steel.
Not all returning series disappointed. Some managed to meet or exceed expectations. The Bad Guys franchise, still relatively new, maintained steady performance. The horror series 28 Days staged a successful comeback, boosted by the return of director Danny Boyle. And two high-profile revivals stood out: Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, which leveraged pent-up demand from a 2002 original, and Marvel’s reboot of Fantastic Four, which finally overcame a troubled past to deliver modest but positive results.
The mixed outcomes underscore a fundamental tension. Audiences crave novelty but also gravitate toward familiar names. The problem is that most of Hollywood’s top franchises have been pushed through so many cycles that novelty has become hard to manufacture. Without fresh creative hooks, sequels risk becoming exercises in brand maintenance rather than true cultural events.
Nevertheless, studios are not abandoning the model. On the contrary, at least 14 franchise films are already on the calendar for summer 2026. The rationale is simple: even with diminishing returns, established titles provide more reliable projections than original concepts. In a marketplace where reaching mass audiences is harder due to fragmented media and shifting viewing habits, brand recognition remains the most valuable asset a studio can deploy.
What the summer of 2025 revealed is that franchises are no longer a guarantee of box office success. They are a starting point, not an endpoint. For Hollywood, the challenge now is to rebuild audience excitement around familiar properties while leaving space for the occasional original idea that might become the next long-running series. The risk is greater, but so too is the potential reward.