Dinosaurs in 2025? Sci-Fi Films Are Getting Boring

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Posted On Nov 19, 2025 By dalelorenzo With No Comments

I watched Jurassic World Rebirth with my nephew. And while my nephew enjoyed the movie, I felt like I was stuck in an endless loop.

Lately, it feels like every sci-fi movie is a sequel, a reimagining, or a fresh take of an old series. And while the 80s are ruling the box office, not everything is rosy. While tentpoles like How to Train Your Dragon and Superman did bring in a lot of money, Thunderbolts* and Captain America: Brave New World underperformed considerably.

Considering that science fiction has been bringing in the big money for Hollywood studios over the past decade or more, it’s been disappointing. In fact, the only movies that are really performing are just animation films, like Ne Zha 2, and live-action remakes of animation films, like How to Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch.

So, what’s going wrong in the process?

Hollywood Is Banking on Nostalgia

From a financial perspective, Jurassic World Rebirth makes sense as a 2025 movie. The monsters are enormous, and kids and adults will always like dinosaurs. However, turning a 400-page book into a multi-part franchise (there have now been seven films) is suspect at best. This is mostly nostalgia. Adults love to introduce kids to lore from their childhood, and action is a safe bet. Hollywood thinks these films are bankable, and they spend a lot of money on making them, and everything becomes another rehash of a rehash of a movie.

But this also means that original stories are missing. Science fiction is supposed to be fantastical and different. By the very definition of the genre, they must go boldly where no one has gone before. TV shows have also been doing this. Severance and Pluribus are massive hits, and Apple TV has been creating a lot of new series that push the boundaries of science fiction.

So, Why Can’t Hollywood Just Make Originals?

The problem with Hollywood is that from 20008 to the late 2010s, franchises just worked. Every Avengers movie made billions of dollars, and an MCU film was a surefire way to get a blockbuster. Every studio puts its money on making the next big cinematic universe, and you now get five to six films every year that belong to these universes. As a fan, you’re expected to watch two, three, or even thirty movies to make sense of the latest blockbuster near you.

But, since the studios have already put in the money, they can’t stop anymore. It’s just bleak. Thankfully, in 2025, studios are taking notice. While there are tentpoles, the schedules are slower, and Hollywood is taking bolder bets.

The Return of Indie Science Fiction

Mickey 17 robert pattionson — Image credit: IGN.

Mickey 17 isn’t about superheroes that don flashy suits (even though both main characters are superheroes in Marvel and DC movies). Instead, the film reflects on capitalism and the futility of human life. And it was a hit. Mickey 17 isn’t alone. Companion and The Life of Chuck are also science fiction stories that discuss human relationships and share very personal stories. Even Shrouds and Descendent are telling human stories behind the facade of science fiction. The reason these films work is that they’re made on low budgets. When you aren’t starting from $400 million spend, it’s easy to build a profit. Plus, movies have a strange way of succeeding when someone actually spends time writing a script.

Hollywood has been on a losing spiral lately. The big tentpoles have been a hit or miss, and even though some movies are performing well (Superman and Fantastic Four were smash hits), they are struggling to turn out a profit. Maybe by 2026, Hollywood executives will realise that something’s gotta give. But, before that, let’s talk about some must-watch 2025 movies.

Mickey 17

Bong Joon-ho’s clone satire is a messy, genre-hopping trip about a disposable worker who keeps dying for capitalism, equal parts bleak, funny, and sad. It doesn’t always hang together, but Pattinson’s acting and the film’s angry underclass politics make it one of the more memorable sci-fi stories of the year.

Companion

Companion is a sharp, nasty little movie about an Unleash AI girlfriend who wakes up to how badly she’s being used. It plays like a Black Mirror episode that criticizes tech, toxic masculinity, and discusses consent.

The Shrouds

Cronenberg uses a grotesque cemetery invention to talk about our obsession with staying connected to the dead. It’s slow and deeply morbid, but if you’re on its wavelength, the blend of emotional rawness and fleshy weirdness really lingers.

In a year where dinosaurs, remakes, and capes are everywhere, it’s the scrappier, stranger sci-fi films that actually feel alive. 2025 has made it pretty clear that audiences are tired of homework-heavy franchises. If Hollywood truly wants sci-fi to make a comeback, it doesn’t need a bigger multiverse; it needs more movies like Mickey 17.