October 2025 closed out as one of the worst months in box office history as Black Phone 2 limped to a “win” at the top of the charts.
Black Phone 2 was in a neck-and-neck battle with Regretting You for the #1 spot at the box office, but the actual numbers put Black Phone 2 over the top. The horror sequel added another $8.3 million, bringing its domestic total to $61.7 million and its worldwide total to $105.3 million. It’s still pretty much neck and neck with the original The Black Phone domestically.
Regretting You dropped 43% from last weekend’s opening and took in $7.8 million. It now has $27.2 million domestically and $50.5 million worldwide. The total box office gross for October was $425 million, marking the worst month for domestic box office grosses since October 1997, which had a total, unadjusted gross of $385 million. The total gross for this past weekend was less than $50 million, making it easily the worst weekend of 2025 and the fourth-worst weekend gross of all time. Misfires like The Smashing Machine and Tron: Ares contributed to the massive underperformance, but it also seemed like the studios had pretty much abandoned the month, waiting for the holiday season of November and December to release their next set of blockbusters.
Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc dropped 66% from last weekend’s #1 opening, making another $6.2 million. That’s pretty typical for recent anime films released domestically, with a domestic total of $30.9 million and a worldwide gross of just over $130 million.
Bugonia and Back to the Future rounded out the top 5. Bugonia expanded wide and leaped from 14th to 4th with $5 million, and it has a domestic total so far of just over $6 million. Back to the Future returned to 2,290 theaters to celebrate its 40th anniversary this year and grossed $4.9 million.
Kpop Demon Hunters was back in theaters for Halloween, but Netflix didn’t release any official numbers.
Further down the list, animated film Stitch Head debuted in 8th place with $2.1 million in 2,162 theaters.
The best per-theater average went to Mistress Dispeller, which played in four theaters and made $3,729 in each of them.
