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Americans who still love a night out at a movie theater got a blunt reminder this Halloween weekend that Hollywood is in trouble, and it’s not an accident. The domestic box office for the Halloween weekend came in at roughly $49.8 million, the lowest Halloween haul in more than three decades — a staggering collapse that should make studio executives and coastal elites very nervous.
It wasn’t just that one weekend; October 2025 closed with roughly $425 million in ticket sales, making it the worst October for cinemas since 1997 and underscoring a broader, accelerating exodus of paying customers. Families and working Americans are voting with their wallets and choosing where to spend their entertainment dollars, and the numbers show they’re increasingly staying home.
The top performers that weekend were hardly juggernauts: Regretting You pulled in about $8.1 million, while The Black Phone 2 hovered near $8 million — modest sums that wouldn’t even qualify as a solid opening for a guaranteed franchise hit in better years. That two very different films led the pack only highlights how thin the slate was and how little studios had to offer audiences looking for a reason to return to theaters.
Industry analysts and trade reports point to a stack of self-inflicted problems: studios mis-timed releases, there were no major horror tentpoles timed to the October peak, and a complacent reliance on streaming windows and prestige talk-show campaigns replaced the old strategy of building big, broad theatrical audiences. Hollywood has spent years chasing niche awards, woke messaging, and streaming bundles instead of giving ordinary Americans the kind of popcorn entertainment they used to pay to see.
Let’s be candid: when studios prioritize ideology over entertainment and treat customers like liabilities instead of patrons, attendance drops. Combined with post-pandemic habit changes and lingering effects from the strikes, theaters are suffering because the content isn’t connecting — and corporate gatekeepers are surprised. The blame sits squarely with decision-makers in Los Angeles who decided culture-war signaling was a better business plan than making movies people actually want to bring their families to.
This is a moment of opportunity for creators who actually respect their audiences and for entrepreneurs willing to offer an alternative. Conservatives and everyday Americans shouldn’t fund studios that lecture them from the screen; rather, we should support filmmakers and theaters that give honest, entertaining films back to the public. If Hollywood wants its customers back, it will stop punishing them with virtue-signaling and start making films that celebrate common-sense values and good storytelling.
Working families deserve entertainment that respects their time and money, not sanctimony. The box office numbers are a red flag and a wake-up call: the marketplace is ruthless, and when you ignore your audience, they stop showing up. It’s time for Hollywood to learn the old lesson: serve the people who pay the bills, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll come back.
