The Boxoffice Podium
Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | June 25 – June 27, 2025
Week 26 | June 25 – June 27, 2025
1. F1
Warner Bros./Apple | NEW
Weekend Range: $45M – $55M
Showtime Marketshare: 19%
Pros
- Warner Bros. and Apple’s Formula One epic F1 has director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer clearly racing to emulate the success of their 2022 smash Top Gun: Maverick. Riding off the back of Oscar-winning superstar Brad Pitt, the movie is going to leverage PLF screenings for an easy first-place finish. We expect somewhere in the mid-to-high $40M range, with the potential to cross $50M if sales maintain their momentum through the weekend. The movie will get an extra boost from Formula One fans during the Austrian Grand Prix this week. Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus is solid at 88%, praising Pitt in movie star mode, delivering an old-school original summer tentpole. A domestic hit would be peachy for Apple, which is struggling to gain a theatrical foothold, but F1 will thrive overseas, where the sport is revered.
Cons
- As far as racing movies go, Ford v Ferrari was a decent-sized hit in 2019 ($225.5M WW), but more recent 2023 racing movie Gran Turismo did a domestic backfire at $44.4M. Even Tom Cruise’s 1990 classic, Days of Thunder ($82.6M domestic/$157.6M worldwide), was considered a disappointment in its day, given its $60M budget and marketing spend. The realism they strove for in that movie has been equaled or bested by F1… but will audiences care enough to show up when they can watch Formula 1: Drive to Survive (or the actual sport) at home?
2. M3GAN 2.0
Universal Pictures/Blumhouse | NEW
Weekend Range: $18M – $25M
Showtime Marketshare: 13%
Pros
- The first M3GAN was one of Blumhouse’s biggest hits ever at $95.1M domestic and $181.79M globally, so it only made sense to get the gang together again for more AI mayhem in M3GAN 2.0. Bringing back the original on camera (Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis) and behind the scenes (director Gerard Johnstone, producer James Wan, writer Akela Cooper) teams from the first M3GAN is a great place to start. This one leans more towards the comedic and action elements of the first one, while promising more robot rumbles per capita.
Cons
- M3GAN 2.0 is not entering the weekend with the traction we were hoping for. Going up against dragons and Brad Pitt somehow feels like a miscalculation on the studio’s part when it would have clearly benefited from a Q1 release with less competition. The 2023 flick was a January movie, after all. If it succeeds, that will come as a result of the ubiquity of its social activations. Universal is doing a fine job in putting it on the map… we just don’t see the sales to follow suit. Horror powerhouse Blumhouse has hit a rough patch of late, with no movie in the last two years opening north of $12M, so they very much need this to work.
3. How to Train Your Dragon
Universal Pictures | Week 3
Weekend Range: $16M – $20M
Showtime Marketshare: 13%
Pros
- Universal’s How to Train Your Dragon held firm at $36.57M in its sophomore frame with a current $164.67M domestic gross (already beating 2019’s The Hidden World). Even though it is set to lose momentum in its third frame, there’s a good chance it can overtake M3GAN for second place. Neither of the two big newcomers are encroaching on its territory, and Pixar’s family dud Elio certainly does not seem to pose a threat to any movie out there.
Cons
- For some reason DreamWorks Animation has never been able to break through the $1 billion ceiling on any of its movies, with its highest global grosser Shrek 2 ($933.8M) having come out over two decades ago. In fact, of their Top 10 domestic grossers, only Kung Fu Panda 4 represents 2020’s output. Keeping the budgets lower of late has been their recipe for success, with the new How to Train Your Dragon coming in at a bargain $150M sans any expensive above-the-liners, yet it certainly will not hit $1B ($362.3M current global total, about what Lilo & Stitch did Frame 1). After nearly three decades in existence alongside merch and theme parks galore, can DreamWorks ever play at the Disney 10-figure level?
Share this post