The head of Disney has highlighted two upcoming films that may boost the House of Mouse's profits at the box office in 2025. Despite three Marvel releases in 2025, Disney has had a slower year at the box office, with Lilo & Stitch being the studio's most prominent performer. That being said, the IP powerhouse still has several new releases on its 2025 slate and some of them have great potential to be big earners.
During Disney's recent earnings call (via Variety), CEO Bob Iger took a moment to highlight the successes and learnings of the most recent quarter and spotlight the films vital to the company in the back half of the year. Iger defended Disney against claims that the studio doesn't invest in enough original material, although he added that "the popularity of our older IP remains significant." As for which of the remaining 2025 films are the most likely to succeed financially, Iger pointed to two sequels: Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Disney still has several other films scheduled for release this year, including Freakier Friday, Predator: Badlands, and Tron: Ares. Despite most of these being legacy franchises, the financial expectations for these films are not as high as those that Iger spotlighted.
The middling success of Marvel releases like Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* suggests that Disney can't solely rely on superheroes to win at the box office anymore, but both Zootopia 2 and Avatar 3 have an advantage that these other Disney releases don't.
The 2025 Disney Films Expected to Earn the Most at the Box Office
Zootopia 2
The animated sequel Zootopia 2 is the only film from Disney's Animation Studios in 2025 and expectations are high. The original Zootopia grossed over $1 billion worldwide for the studio and it's taken almost a decade to get the sequel out the door.
The story is set in a metropolis of anthropomorphic animals, following the story of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps, an unlikely thieving fox and police bunny duo from the original film who formed a solid partnership and saved their city. The sequel sees the duo track down a new character (Ke Huy Quan's Gary De'Snake) and explore new parts of their animal-filled world.
Inside Out 2's huge success at the box office in 2024 proved that there is still an appetite for these legacy animated sequels, even if it's been a long time between instalments. With Zootopia's billion-dollar past, Zootopia 2 has the potential to be just as successful at the box office when it releases on November 26.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
With both Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water landing spots on the all-time highest-grossing movies list (earning $2.9 billion and $2.3 billion, respectively), it's no surprise that expectations for the third Avatar film are exceptionally high.
Avatar: Fire and Ash will take the sci-fi story to new sections of the otherworldly Pandora, as Jake Sully and his family meet with new clans and face old foes.
Trailers for Avatar 3 have set the bar high for another immersive adventure, grounded in the cutting-edge 3D and motion-capture technology James Cameron's sci-fi franchise has become famous for. The prospect of this advanced cinema technology has enhanced the need to see Avatar films in the past, and that will become crucial once again when Avatar 3 is released in cinemas on December 19.
With a thirteen-year gap between the first and second Avatar films, it was unclear whether Cameron's sci-fi franchise had the legs to repeat its success at the box office. After Avatar: The Way of Water climbed to the third-highest-grossing film of all time, the franchise firmly established itself as a box office sensation. Now all eyes are on Avatar: Fire and Ash to see if Avatar can perform a hat trick.
