2025 proved to be a year entertainment fans would rather forget.
From catastrophic box office bombs to tone-deaf celebrity missteps, Hollywood delivered disappointment after disappointment.
Industry insiders and critics are calling it a cultural low point — and the evidence is hard to ignore.
Here’s what went spectacularly wrong in entertainment this year, according to those watching closely.
Star-Driven Dramas Died at the Box Office
This was supposed to be the year adult-oriented cinema made its triumphant return. Instead, it became a funeral procession.
Sony’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey with Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, A24’s The Smashing Machine featuring Dwayne Johnson, 20th Century’s Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere with Jeremy Allen White, and Black Bear’s Christy starring Sydney Sweeney all crashed and burned.
Critic David Canfield noted the grim pattern: “All suffered the same box-office fate in quick succession: They bombed hard, placing the very future of movies of their type and scale into doubt.”
While holiday releases like Hamnet and Marty Supreme offered small glimmers of hope, the damage was done. The era of star-driven studio dramas may have officially ended.
The AI “Actress” Nobody Asked For
Dutch comedian Eline van der Velden unleashed Hollywood’s worst nightmare in September: Tilly Norwood, a dead-eyed AI “actress.”
Van der Velden’s claim that Norwood would soon be represented by a major agency sent real actors into a justified rage.
Betty Gilpin even penned a real “chef’s kiss” open letter to her new digital nemesis.
Industry observer Mikey O’Connell captured the collective disgust: “Let’s keep Tilly where she belongs, on the sticky hard drive of some lonely incel’s PC.”
The stunt became the avatar for Hollywood’s collective AI anxiety — a reminder that technological disruption feels less like progress and more like threat.
Wrestling Fans Got Financially Body-Slammed
Remember when WWE content was accessible and affordable? Those days are gone.
The WWE Network once offered everything — pay-per-views, weekly shows, archive content — for $9.99 monthly. When Peacock acquired it, fans could access everything for as little as $4.99.
Now? Watching WWE programming requires multiple subscriptions totaling around $50 monthly or more.
- Netflix has Raw
- ESPN carries most Premium Live Events
- Peacock has others plus SmackDown
Tony Maglio summed up fan sentiment perfectly: “The WWE Universe yearns for the good ol’ days.”
HBO Lost the Streaming War
For over a decade, HBO represented quality while Netflix championed quantity. That battle appears decisively over.
Netflix emerged as the winner of Hollywood’s Warner Bros. sweepstakes, leaving genuine concerns about HBO’s premium brand future.
Maglio expressed what many felt: “It’s a bummer for a bunch of reasons: 1) the competition brought their bests out; and 2) there is a genuine reason for concern about the future of the HBO brand, the cream of the crop in prestige TV.”
Grand Theft Auto VI Became a Running Joke
Gamers asked the same question repeatedly: Is GTA VI ever actually coming out?
Currently scheduled for November 19, 2026, the game has faced multiple delays. Originally expected by 2025, it was pushed to May 2026, then November 2026.
Nobody’s marking calendars with permanent ink anymore.
Ryan Murphy’s Autumn Assault on Quality
Ryan Murphy flooded fall 2025 with content quantity that brutally sacrificed quality.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story kicked off October, reminding viewers how exploitative and repetitive the franchise had become. Then came All’s Fair in November — a tone-deaf legal procedural featuring Kim Kardashian stealing screen time from talented actresses.
Daniel Fienberg delivered the brutal assessment: “Both shows were awful. Both shows were hits.”
Squid Game’s Disappointing Return
When Squid Game ended in 2021, fans felt cautious optimism about continuation.
Season two arrived in 2024 with “half a story that retraced too much of the first season while adding too little surprise or depth,” according to critic Angie Han.
Season three confirmed everyone’s fears — sluggishly paced, thinly drawn, with nasty plot twists but zero new insights.
He’d have been better off leaving that island in the past and letting himself and us move on with the rest of our lives.
Naked Dressing Reached Peak Exhaustion
Bianca Censori wore essentially nothing at the Grammys in February. Sydney Sweeney freed nipples at a women’s empowerment event in October.
Fashion critic Alison Edmond questioned whether this trend actually liberates women or simply caters to male gaze.
Her conclusion? “None of these women can hold a candle to Marilyn.”
Trump Received FIFA’s “Peace Prize”
If satire died in 2025, this was the funeral.
FIFA — the organization behind Qatar’s controversial World Cup and endless corruption probes — gave Donald Trump a “Peace Prize.”
Scott Roxborough captured the absurdity: “If you made this call on the field, VAR would have chalked it off.”
Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni Courtroom Circus
Nobody won this celebrity legal battle except schadenfreude itself.
What began as a dispute ballooned into a rolling demonstration of how not to behave — on set, in media, or under oath.
Each filing made everyone look worse. By the end, choosing sides became impossible.
Roxborough summarized: “The prevailing emotion wasn’t outrage or sympathy but fatigue, the kind that comes from watching very rich, very unpleasant people litigate their privilege in public.”
James L. Brooks Drove Off a Creative Cliff
At 85, legendary storyteller James L. Brooks delivered Ella McCay — a stunningly inept ensemble comedy about young woman navigating family and politics.
Critic David Rooney pulled no punches: “Nothing works in this head-scratcher, because the story has no footing in our contemporary world.”
The incisive grasp of character that made Brooks a national treasure is gone.
Netflix Wasted $320 Million on The Electric State
While talented directors struggle getting projects greenlit, Netflix threw $320 million at the Russo Brothers for The Electric State.
The soulless sci-fi adventure had nothing original to say about AI.
Rooney delivered the damning verdict: The film’s “main achievement is to show that Chris Pratt is on a Mark Wahlberg level in terms of limited range, and people need to stop trying to make Millie Bobby Brown happen as a movie star.”
Phil Rosenthal’s “Democratic” Restaurant Became Ultra-Elite
The Everybody Loves Raymond creator opened a Larchmont Village diner promising cozy neighborhood vibes.
It’s very important to me that it remains democratic with a small ‘d.’
Instead, Max & Helen immediately became an ultra-fashionable Hollywood VIP spot. Regular folks face hours-long waits while friends of Phil advance to the front if they know his daughter’s number.
So much for democracy.