Part 5/10:
Since the pandemic, the mantra of "survive till 2025" was repeated as a hopeful rallying cry to keep the industry afloat. Yet, as the year concludes, it's clear that this mantra was a fragile illusion. Despite scheduled releases and deliberate pushes, Hollywood’s biggest bets failed to deliver the anticipated returns. The previous summer’s record-breaking Barbie and Oppenheimer (the so-called Barbenheimer phenomenon) set high hopes for a new era of blockbuster dominance, but that optimism did not carry into the following season.