Original films keep shrinking at the box office, new 31-year study finds

A new Bamfuzzle study tracking 1,550 titles across 31 years says original screenplays made up just 10% of the North American box office top 50 in 2025, down from 36% in 1995. The report says franchise-driven films now dominate the chart, and no original film has topped the annual U.S. box office since Avatar in 2010.

Why it matters: - Original films are getting fewer spots and less money at the North American box office. - The shift matters because the study measures the highest-profile commercial releases each year, where brand recognition and sequel power now dominate. - The report suggests the market is leaving less room for new stories to break through.

What happened: - Bamfuzzle published The Hollywood Originality Report, a study covering 31 consecutive years of North American box office data from 1995 to 2025. - The report classified all 1,550 films that appeared in the annual top 50 into five groups: original screenplay, sequel, remake, adaptation from another medium, and dramatization of true events. - Original screenplays made up 10% of the 50 highest-grossing films in 2025, down from 36% in 1995. - Films built on pre-existing intellectual property rose from 54% of the top 50 in 1995 to 88% in 2025. - Original films earned 10.9% of top-50 revenue in 2025, down from 34.2% in 1995. - Sequels grew from 17.1% of top-50 revenue in 1995 to 52.9% in 2025, and peaked at 73.7% in 2021. - Across 2020 to 2024, original films averaged 9.7% of top-50 revenue, the lowest five-year average in the dataset. - No original film has finished a calendar year as the highest-grossing release in North America since Avatar in 2010. - The last original film to open and top its own calendar year outright was Finding Nemo in 2003.

The details: - Nine of the 31 years in the study produced no original film in the annual top 10, and all nine were after 2010. - From 1995 to 2010, that never happened. - The 11 years from 1995 to 2005 produced 42 original films in the top 10, or 3.8 per year on average. - The 11 years from 2015 to 2025 produced five original films in the top 10. - The number of distinct franchises appearing in the top 50 rose from 21 in 1995 to 36 in 2025. - The 2025 top 10 included four remakes, the highest concentration in any year of the study. - The 2025 top 10 included one original film, Sinners, at No. 7. - The report says roughly 40 borderline titles required editorial judgment and were flagged in the underlying data. - Box office figures come from Box Office Mojo calendar-year domestic charts and are nominal, not inflation-adjusted. - The report publishes the full 1995-2025 dataset, category definitions, and priority rules for films that qualify in more than one category. - Bamfuzzle says the findings are free to cite and republish with attribution and a link.

Between the lines: - The report argues the trend is not just a story of fewer franchises, because more distinct franchises now compete for the same 50 slots. - The data point to a broader crowding-out effect, where branded titles multiply and original films lose chart share. - The report does not show whether fewer original films are being made, because it only measures the top 50 grossing films each year. - The study also includes no budget data, so it cannot support conclusions about profitability. - The strongest signal is in revenue, not just count: original films are taking a much smaller share of the box office dollars than they did in the 1990s.

What's next: - Bamfuzzle says The Hollywood Originality Report will be extended by one calendar year each January. - Future editions will continue tracking whether the share of original films in the box office top 50 keeps falling or stabilizes. - The published dataset gives analysts a baseline for comparing upcoming years against the 1995-2025 trend.

The bottom line: - Hollywood’s biggest commercial releases are increasingly franchise-first, and original films are now a much smaller piece of the box office than they were 30 years ago. - More information is available in Bamfuzzle's announcement.