Between 1995 and 2024, action movies took second place in overall box-office earnings, behind adventure films. There’s obviously a lot of crossover between the two genres, the distinction falling somewhere between Indiana Jones and John Wick, or Waterworld and Robocop.
Adventure earned $67.27 billion to action’s $60.22 billion over those 29 years, according to research by Statista. For reference, 1995 brought us Bad Boys and Die Hard with a Vengeance. It was the year the San Francisco 49ers beat the Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX, pop band Take That split up, and Windows 95 launched to much fanfare.
One of action’s biggest successes came fairly recently, in 2022. The genre held 53.5% of the market share that year. Adventure fell to 17.1%, while the third strongest category, drama, dipped to just 8.7%. Of course, all these numbers are created by fans attending the movies – so, what actually came out in 2022?
Avatar: The Way of Water
The biggest launch in 2022 was the sequel to the inexplicably massive Avatar, subtitled The Way of Water. It held 70% of the box office that year. That equates to a haul of $2.3 billion.
This is where the line between action and adventure starts to blur. Yes, it’s an energetic movie, but it’s also a window on something director James Cameron considers a beautiful world. The man’s an adventurer, himself, regularly disappearing to the bottom of the ocean.
Avatar: The Way of Water undoubtedly shoved action up the genre charts, especially if we consider that adventure was in a slump that year.
Top Gun: Maverick pulled in $1.5 billion in 2022, followed by the $1 billion earned by Jurassic World: Dominion. Another action movie, The Batman, which embraced the Dark Knight’s violent streak, landed in seventh place (£772 million). Things start to blur beyond that, although every entry in the top 40 earned more than $100 billion.
RoboCop
Action’s star faded dramatically after 2022, joining the adventure genre with a quarter of the market. However, it earned some exposure in subsequent years from the digital realm and game developers like Playtech, which launched RoboCop Cash Collect in 2024.
A licensed game found at a slots casino, RoboCop Cash Collect features characters from the original 1987 movie. Officer Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen), corrupt Omni Consumer Products president Dick Jones, and the hulking ED-209 appear on the reels.
Movies and other properties have gradually made their way onto casino sites this decade. The adventure genre is represented by The Mummy: Books of Amun Ra, for example.
In a surprising turnaround, action reclaimed its throne in 2024. The year represented the best year since 1995 for horror, too.
So, what about 2025? Jurassic World: Rebirth performed well, currently closing on a $900 million, despite the specter of franchise fatigue. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is no slouch, either, raking in $598 million.
Overall, action maintains a hold on theatres, with adventure the only close competitor. The high of 2022 will be a tough one to meet again – at least until the next Avatar movie comes out.