There is a new champion of Hollywood movies at the 2025 box office. With its take over the long Fourth of July holiday weekend, Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch” remake has surpassed “A Minecraft Movie” as the biggest American movie of the year globally. Chinese animated blockbuster “Ne-Zha 2” still stands heads and shoulders above the rest with more than $2 billion to its name, but so far as Hollywood productions go, Disney is now on top.
“Jurassic World Rebirth” opened to a massive $322 million globally over the weekend, taking the lion’s share of attention. However, “Lilo & Stitch” pulled in another $13.7 million on its seventh weekend, including $2.8 million domestically. That brings its running total to $972.7 million worldwide, including $408.5 million domestically and $564.2 million internationally thus far. It’s now all but assured to become the first Hollywood release of the year to crack the $1 billion mark.
With that, it overtakes “A Minecraft Movie,” which opened to $163 million domestically earlier this year, with its global total currently sitting at $954.9 million. Both movies are massive hits and there is no real reason to lower one to raise the other. Both movies are getting sequels and will help build ever-important franchises for Disney and Warner Bros., respectively.
More important than any of that, though, is the fact that they both have something very crucial in common. Both of these are big-budget PG movies. Both of them stand tall above everything else Hollywood has thrown at audiences in 2025 thus far. For as much ink that has been spilled over the success of the R-rated “Sinners” ($365 million worldwide), it’s these family-friendly movies leading the way. To be clear, what “Sinners” has accomplished is nothing shy of miraculous, but so too is the quiet yet very steady rise of the PG movie in recent years.
PG movies are the current king of the box office
As of this writing, the fourth-biggest movie of the year is “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” ($576.1 million), which is rated PG-13. But just behind it? Another PG, family-friendly remake in the form of “How to Train Your Dragon” ($516.9 million), which is in a good position to overtake “Mission: Impossible” when all’s said and done with an over/under $600 million global finish. The PG movie is having itself a big moment.
There are exceptions, of course, with Pixar’s “Elio” flopping hard at the box office and currently struggling to break $100 million globally after two weekends. At the same time, 2024 saw Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” make $1.69 billion to become the biggest animated movie ever until “Ne-Zha 2” came along. Much was made of the R-rated “Deadpool & Wolverine” making $1.3 billion to become the second-biggest movie of 2024, but looking at the bigger picture, seven of the top ten biggest global grossers last year were PG movies.
That includes “Moana 2” ($1 billion), “Despicable Me 4” ($969.5 million), “Wicked” ($756.2 million), “Mufasa: The Lion King” ($722.6 million), “Kung Fu Panda 4” ($547.6 million), and “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” ($492.1 million). There is much to be said about the difficulty that original movies are still facing, even in the PG arena, But it’s undeniable that as superhero movies struggle, as horror movies aren’t as surefire as they once seemed, and as some long-running franchises struggle to find a path forward, PG movies are thriving.
For years, particularly as superhero movies dominated the landscape for well over a decade, the prevailing theory seemed to be that PG-13 was the ticket to success. It’s what helped the Marvel Cinematic Universe generate more than $30 billion at the box office, culminating in “Avengers: Endgame” ($2.79 billion) becoming the biggest movie ever, albeit only briefly. Clearly, in the pandemic era, things have changed.
The nostalgia wave worth riding has shifted
To be clear, it’s not as though a PG rating alone is some sort of magic bullet that ensures success. It doesn’t. Just look at Disney’s live-action “Snow White,” which stands to lose around $115 million after topping out at $205.6 million globally this year. But there is power in a movie that families can rally around. It’s what helped “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” overcome a terrible $12.4 million domestic opening to end up with $480.6 million worldwide. It’s the same thing that helped “Elemental” overcome its lousy $29.6 million opening to make nearly $500 million worldwide. With a family movie, you’re often selling several tickets, not just one.
That having been said, another key element here goes beyond the rating of these movies. Many of them are targeting younger moviegoers with nostalgia that is meaningful to them. “Minecraft” is one of the biggest video games of all time. Kids who grew up playing it turned up in droves to see the movie. People who grew up watching “Lilo & Stitch” in the early 2000s wanted to bring their young kids to see the new one. It’s not nostalgia aimed at much, much older people.
The same outdated nostalgia that helped make “Transformers” a huge hit in 2007 also doomed the animated “Transformers One” in 2024. People in their 20s who liked those movies then are now in their 40s with kids, careers, and responsibilities. Targeting nostalgia that younger moviegoers care about is hugely important when it comes to ensuring that the theatrical experience can live on.
Yes, movies like “Top Gun: Maverick” that help get older moviegoers out en masse are hugely important as well, but there’s certainly something to be said for this recent wave of PG blockbusters. They’re inviting to a larger, often ignored audience that, when motivated, will show up. Those are lessons that can and should be applied to other movies as well. Your move, Hollywood.
“Lilo & Stitch” is in theaters now.
