Welcome to the party, pals.
The New York Times published a grim look at this year’s theatrical releases. The report shares what right-leaning commentators have noted for years.
The era of the Movie Star is unofficially over.
Hollywood in DECLINE: Celebrities in PANIC as Cultural Relevance VANISHES in 2025 & 2026! https://t.co/C4reMXh0aR
— wdwpro (@wdwpro1) November 13, 2025
The timing couldn’t be more prophetic. Glen Powell, an actor with a Cruise-level magnetism and willingness to please, couldn’t push “The Running Man” to the top of the box office charts. The film opened with a weak $17 million.
The New York Times’ report could have seen those figures coming.
The article’s title pulls no punches: “25 Movies, Many Stars, 0 Hits: Hollywood Falls to New Lows”
The story itself doesn’t, either.
Theaters in the United States and Canada collected $445 million across all titles in October, the lowest total on record, after adjusting for inflation and excluding 2020, when the pandemic darkened screens.
For context, October ticket sales in 2019 totaled an adjusted $1 billion, according to Comscore.
Why? How much time do you have? It’s easy to point to the obvious causes:
- The rise of streaming competition
- The shrinking window for films hitting VOD platforms
- The rise of consequential video game titles
- Social media
- Shrinking attention spans
- The pandemic fallout
And the ones media outlets won’t go near.
- Stars made themselves toxic to half the country
- Stars are, for the most part, over-exposed
- The movies just aren’t very good, in toto
- Hollywood has lost touch with the common man
The blame game follows the classic improv guidebook: “Yes, and …”
No one cause is to blame. Combine them all, and you’ve got a serious problem.
It doesn’t help that we collectively don’t trust critics as much as in the past. Some of the recent flops have been very well received critically, but that didn’t push audiences to sample them in theaters.
The industry’s problems aren’t all self-inflicted. Others, like alienating audiences with divisive, far-Left messaging, clearly are.
Just ask Josh Hutcherson.
Brittany Broski asks Josh Hutcherson to say something that he would say if he were brainwashed:
“‘I’m a Republican’, or anything that reads into that.”
(https://t.co/XXrjVqIBNM) pic.twitter.com/dfaDx0SFMz
— Pop Base (@PopBase) November 16, 2025
The year in movies will get a trio of boosts in the coming weeks.
- “Wicked for Good” (Nov. 21)
- “Avatar: Fire and Ash” (Dec. 19)
- “Zootopia 2” (Nov. 26)
Those sequels will cushion the blow for a reeling industry. None of the three is driven by star power. That’s no accident.
It’s the new normal.
The post NY Times: Is Hollywood’s Movie Star Era Over? appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.
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