Year-to-date box office up 8% despite October fall amid dearth of family films
October box office in the UK and Ireland totalled £73.9m, a 9% decline from the same month last year, according to the latest figures from Comscore.
Year-to-date box office is, however, still running 8% ahead of 2024 and just 1% of 2023 heading into a packed holiday season.
The top film during the month of October was Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which debuted in late September. The award season contender grossed £7.3m to take its lifetime earnings to £11.3m — by far Anderson’s highest-grossing title in the region.
Tom Linay, content business director at cinema sales house Digital Cinema Media, estimated admissions were also down around 4% during the month. (Official admissions figures are not released until later in the month.)
“It was a month with no major footfall films,” Linay commented, acknowleding Tron: Ares, the biggest title released in October on paper, “didn’t connect with audiences”. The Tron sequel was the fourth-highest grossing film during the month, with £4.8m.
Nevertheless, Linay added, the “small stuff” held its own. One Battle After Another, a 2-hour-and-40-minute thriller, outperformed expectations, as did Studiocanal’s British biographical drama I Swear, which grossed £5.2m in October — good for third best.
Also of note in October: Taylor Swift’s The Official Release Party of A Showgirl grossed £3.4m across its three-night-only release, good for the biggest event cinema release this year, and second all-time only to her 2023 Eras Tour concert film (£5.7m).
Linay attributed the overall downbeat result in October to a confluence of factors including two delays that went unreplaced (biopic Michael, now releasing next April; and Mortal Kombat II, now releasing next May), and a lack of tentpole family films to take advantage of the half-term holiday.
“We could’ve done with a family film in October,” Linay reflected. “That’s why I think the box office figures are down year on year.”
Last October’s biggest film was one such title, The Wild Robot (£12.1m in October 2024). Cinemas appear to be suffering from a dearth of successful family titles since May’s live action Lilo & Stitch. But that is assured to change next month.
November preview: Something Wicked this way comes
November is likely to see a major uplift in box office and attendance. Universal’s Wicked: For Good is the season’s flagship title, and according to Linay it has easily been the “most-sought-after” film for advertisers in 2025.
DCM’s in-house ad production arm, DCM Studios, has already begun airing a Wicked-themed “turn off your phones” spot in partnership with Google Pixel.
“It’s going to be massive,” Linay said of Wicked. He predicted the film is likely to unseat A Minecraft Movie as 2025’s biggest title by box office, with several cinemas already fully booked out for opening night two weeks in advance of its debut on 21 November.
Apart from Wicked, Disney sequel Zootropolis 2 (Zootopia 2 in other markets) is also slated to be a major attendance draw for kids and their parents.
Meanwhile action films like Disney’s Predator: Badlands (7 November) and Paramount’s Stephen King adaptation The Running Man (12 November) offer some diversity to the film slate for adult audiences.
For those already keen to get into the Christmas spirit, Paramount’s A Paw Patrol Christmas (7 November) and True Brit’s Christmas Karma (14 November) are releasing to spread some early cheer.
Other notable titles include art-house film Die My Love and historical drama Nuremburg, both releasing on the 14th.
