Jack Quaid’s new action-packed film, Novocaine, won the weekend box office with an estimated $8.7 million domestically. However, directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen’s big-screen collaboration still couldn’t numb the pain the theater industry continues to endure. Yes, for the third week in a row, March is sadly vying to post the worst weekend of 2025 yet again, but this time, it seems ceratin to actually achieve the infamous distinction.
All the film titles over the course of this last weekend (Mar. 14-16), which played in theaters, only managed to make a grand total of $50.3 million. That figure is even worse than the $53.9 million posted over Super Bowl LIX weekend (Feb. 7-9) and the total ($53.65 million) garnered by the previous record holder for the worst weekend of 2025 (Feb. 28-Mar.2). Sadly, when the actual numbers are revealed on Monday, Mar. 17, the figure won’t fluctuate enough to avoid taking home the dubious honor.
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Unfortunately, the news gets even worse for the theater industry because this will also go down as one of the worst months of March financially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, that distinction still belongs to March 2021 ($77.57 million). Thus far, the first three weekends of March 2025 have only tallied a total of $158.5 million, which means there’s still work to be done in order to avoid becoming the second-worst March since the pandemic began in March 2020.
‘Snow White’ Needs to Succeed to Avoid Possible Record-Breaking Blues
Disney
Disney’s next live-action reimagining needs to rise above its controversy because the theater industry is in desperate need of business. Unfortunately, Snow White’s revised box office forecast only predicts the film to open somewhere between $48 million and $58 million, which could spell disaster. To avoid going down as the second-worst March financially since the onset of the pandemic, the final two weekends (Mar. 21-23; Mar. 28-30) need to combine for over $94.1 million to avoid coming in behind March 2020’s total of $252.6 million. Check out how the months of March have shaped up since the pandemic began below.
Box Office Numbers for the Month of March Dating Back to the Pandemic (Domestic)
- March 2020: $252.6 million *theaters shut down after the third weekend
- March 2021: $77.6 million
- March 2022: $432.4 million
- March 2023: $542.3 million
- March 2024: $579 million
- March 2025: $158.5 million *through first three weekends
Part of the problem falls on the unsure shoulders of the movie studios because of the lack of profitable titles being released in March 2025. Snow White is this month’s heaviest hitter, but it’s hardly going to have the same economic impact that The Batman enjoyed in March 2022. Director Matt Reeves’ take on the DC Comics character was the No. 1 film for its first three weekends in a row, which bolstered that month’s total take of $432.4 million. Robert Pattinson’s Dark Knight might not have been around in 2023 or 2024, but those months of March had the advantage of multiple must-sees which lead to overwhelming financial success.
March 2023 featured several high-profile movies, including Creed 3, Scream VI, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Likewise, in 2024, film studios dropped many must-see titles in cinemas, including Dune: Part Two, Kung Fu Panda 4, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Without the lure of features like these that appeal to audiences as “theatrical experiences,” fans are simply going to continue waiting for mediocre titles to drop on streaming, rather than shelling out their hard-earned dollars at multiplexes.
Meanwhile, focusing on what the theater industry is offering in March 2025, last week’s No. 1 film, Mickey 17, dropped 60% between its first and second weekends en route to the silver medal with $7.51 million. Black Bag began its theatrical run at No. 3 with $7.5 million, while Captain America: Brave New World checked in at No. 4 with $5.5 million. Unfortunately, Captain America 4 was still unable to eclipse the $400 million mark worldwide ($388.6 million). The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie rounded out the Top 5 with $3.2 million, and the weekend’s best per-theater average ($2,773) went to Black Bag.
Snow White joins the 2025 box office next on Mar. 21. The theater industry needs the Mouse House’s live-action adaptation to not only score with audiences but succeed because it could very well be the movie tasked with carrying the rest of the month. Several titles are slated to drop over the final weekend of March, including Death of a Unicorn, The Woman in the Yard, and the Jason Statham-led A Working Man. However, they will all have to tally incredible numbers to keep this from going down as one of the worst months of March since the pandemic began. Sadly, this time around, there are no kaijus, Ghostbusters, superheroes, or even John Wick available to slip in there and save the day.
Source: The Numbers
Release Date
March 14, 2025
Runtime
24 minutes
Director
Dan Berk, Robert Olsen
Writers
Lars Jacobson
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