THE RAYGUN NEWSLETTER :: WEEK COMMENCING JANUARY 12 2026

ERA FIGURES FOR 2025: RECORD YEAR FOR ENTERTAINMENT

SUBS, STREAMING DRIVE GROWTH…

VIDEO THE STAR PERFORMER…

…AS PHYSICAL VIDEO DECLINE SLOWS

COMMENT ON YEAR-END FIGURES FROM SPIRIT…

…AS ELEVATION ALSO CELEBRATES PHYSICAL

PHYSICAL RENTAL FIGURES FALL

…BUT SNIPS ENJOYS RECORD YEAR

BOX OFFICE STRONGEST SINCE PANDEMIC…

UNIVERSAL TOP THEATRICAL DISTRIBUTOR

COMMENT ON UK 2025 BOX OFFICE

HOUSEMAID AND MARTY REIGN SUPREME…

MAKE WAY FOR THE ORIGINALS

SISU STACKS UP A BURGER OFFERING

WINDOW OPENS FOR SHAMELESS

RADIANCE GETS SET FOR APRIL…

…AND REVEALS FILMS IT COULDN’T GET

THE RAYGUN’S TOP 10 FOR 2025

SIGHT AND SOUND'S TOP BLU-RAYS

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TRAILERS OF THE WEEK

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It was a good week for… Physical media, as the decline in sales slows…

It was a bad week for… We're starting the year with a positive outlook, so no complaining. And why not spread the love and support The Ragyun in 2026…

We have been watching… Our first film in cinemas for 2026 was the seemingly uniquitous Marty Supreme (in a sold out cinema) and we're already getting stuck in to loads of forthcoming Blu-rays and streaming titles. See what we'e been up to on Letterboxd…

As is customary, the first figures looking back at the past year released in January come from ERA, the Digital and Retail Entertainment Association (BASE’s traditionally follow, they turned up after we'd finalised this newsletter, they will be in the next edition) and January 7 saw the trade association publishing its interim figures for 2025. And the figures looked mightily impressive, not just for video, but ERA’s two other key areas music and games, and entertainment as a whole too. Before we get to video itself, let’s look at the overall entertainment market, with ERA saying digital and retail entertainment sales across video, music and games attained their highest ever level last year, rising to £13.257.3 million - £13.3 billion rounded up. Sales grew, ERA said, at 7.1 per cent in 2025, a rate four times faster than the UK economy (the Office for Budget Responsibility has predicted that GDP was set to increase by 1.5 per cent in 2025). It marks a “sharp upturn” in growth across the three sectors compared with the previous year. ERA added that entertainment sales have grown by more than 120 per cent over the past 10 years, a rate 10 times faster than that of the UK economy, which grew by just 12 per cent in the same period. Over those 10 years, video grew by more than 14 times the rate of the UK economy (171 per cent in total), with games growing by more than seven times and music more than 10 times. The 2025 growth was double the rate in 2024 (from 3.3 per cent to 7.1 per cent) and was the fastest seen since the pandemic affected figures of 2020. The combined value of video, music and games is now nearly double the figure recorded in 2017 (£6.7 billion) and 66 per cent up on the last pre-pandemic year of 2019.

Commenting on the overall figures, ERA chief Kim Bayley said: “This result vindicates the transformational role of streaming services and retailers in driving the entertainment sector to new heights, thanks to a potent combination of technology, investment and innovation. While conditions may be tough in the wider economy, streaming services and retailers are winning a greater share of consumer spending and proving their central role in the UK’s creative economy, driving revenues for musicians, filmmakers and games developers. Approaching five years after the first lockdown when entertainment revenues leapt an extraordinary 25 per cent in a year, it is now clear that it was more than a blip. It marked a long-term shift in entertainment spending which streaming services and retailers have solidified with a string of innovations.”

Within the different categories, video was arguably the star performer – revenues grew at eight per cent – the fastest rate since 2022 – to £5,438.8m, its growth outstripping the 5.1 per cent of 2024. ERA said streaming vod was driving much of the growth, revenues increasing by 8.8 per cent to £4,904.5m, boosted by the likes of Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. Revenue from film downloads rose by 7.4 per cent to £202 million. The report continued: “Sales of physical video formats of video including DVD and Blu-ray declined 4.7 per cent (2024: -8 per cent) to £148.9m, their slowest rate of decline since 2010. Blu-ray (inc 4K UHD) reinforced its position as video’s strongest physical format with sales of £84.2m compared with DVD’s £64.7m.” Wicked was the biggest seller of the year, with sales of 983,119, which, ERA noted, was “a substantial increase on 2024’s biggest seller Deadpool & Wolverine (561,917)”. ERA CEO Kim Bayley said: “Thanks to the investment and innovations of streaming companies the video business is now nearly the twice the size it was at the height of the DVD boom in 2004 (£2.95bn). Video is arguably the best example of the transformational power of streaming to deliver choice, convenience and accessibility. Meanwhile there are promising signs in the physical format market with a sharp fall in the rate of decline as studios and retailers lean into physical’s distinctive benefits of quality and collectability.”

Other figures from ERA across music and games showed some interesting trends. The total music market was up 4.2 pre cent to £2,453.3 million. Streaming subs on music rose 3.2 per cent to £2,045.4 million, downloads were down 3.5 per cent to £39.9 million while physical sales were eUP 11.5 per cent to £368.1 million. Within this, vinyl grew by a hefty 18.5 per cent, with other physical formats, notable cassettes, up 95 per cent to £4.6 million. CDs were flat, down one per cent to £125 million. In games, the sector grew more in 2025, up 7.4 per cent to £5,365.2 million, than it did in the previous four years combined. Sales of physical console games was down one per cent to £318.8 million, but, the report noted: “Nonetheless games remains the last bastion in entertainment of ownership rather than access models. Nearly half of games revenues (45%) are generated by fans paying to buy rather than access them, compared with 16.6 per cent in music and just 7.2 per cent in video.”

The performance of the year’s biggest video title Wicked came as sales operation Spirit completed its first year looking after Universal’s physical releases in the UK as part of an ongoing deal with the studio, (all the major studios now go through a partner company in similar arrangements). This attention to physical formats is obviously helping slow the rate of decline in physical and despite numerous reports of physical media’s demise, as The Raygun noted throughout the year, consumers are returning to physical media in film and TV and the market is still worth almost £150 million. Spirit’s Rob Callow said: “The retail physical visual market has continued to be remarkably resilient throughout 2025. New Release, Catalogue campaigns, Special Editions, HD re-releases and TV box sets have all continued to perform extremely well with the market only marginally down year on year. The Downton Abbey result at the end of the year was particularly pleasing from an overall market perspective not just because of the extraordinary level of sales but the fact that circa 90 per cent of those sales were on DVD a format that many speculated had had its day! With consumers still committed to owning and collecting on physical formats, a large number of valued and highly committed retail partners and a continued strong flow of fabulous product there is no reason the market should not continue to perform and who knows even grow over the coming years. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our retail, content and supply chain partners and colleagues across the Home Entertainment market a very successful 2026.”

The other major operation handling studio and other fare, taking in everything from niche Indies to the likes of Disney, Paramount, Sony and Warner, is, of course, the Lionsgate and Studiocanal joint venture Elevation Sales. The Raygun canvassed the company’s Richard Athill, who said: “To have 2025 close with decline below five per cent is incredibly encouraging and gratifying, cementing what we believed the market would do at the start of the year. It underlines the great work done by our physical retail partners supporting the New Release slate and maximising the revenue opportunities the expanding specialist Catalogue market offers. And let’s not forget Tesco’s re-introduction to the frame, offering further evidence that consumer demand for physical remains strong and viable. Unsurprisingly, Film and TV continue to do the heavy lifting and its great to see how enduring DVD remains, taking the lion’s share of the format sales mix (56 per cent). Hopefully, this is the beginning of a prolonged period of stability for physical and we at Elevation are excited for 2026.”

Meanwhile, ERA’s figures show that physical rental fell by 29.5 per cent in 2025, from £4.5 million in value to £3.2 million – the figure has almost halved from 2023’s £5.9 million. So we thought we’d get our annual rental update from Dave Wain, proprietor of one of the country’s last physical rental bricks and mortar stores, the excellent Snips on The Wirral in the north west. Wain is a regular Raygun reader and sometime contributor (as are the fine folk at Bristol’s equally wonderful 20th Century Flicks). He also does assorted commentaries for Arrow, 88 Films and the likes, alongside his partner in website The Schlock Pit Matty Budrewicz, and as if that’s not enough, he’s now a YouTuber, providing regular missives and updates in his Inside The Video Store series. Wain said: “Rental for 2025 has been a record breaker for Snips. The number of films out on loan gets higher with every passing week, and new customers seem to be discovering the store on an almost daily basis. ‘I'm just sick of streaming companies taking the piss out of us’, said one customer to me just prior to Christmas, and this genuinely seems to be a major contributor to this ever increasing footfall at Snips. Choice has also been a big draw, and 2025 has seen the catalogue at Snips grow by over 3000 titles, which now means that it's the largest rentable archive of films in the UK. It's been impossible not to grow it by that number though, as it truly has been a special year for physical media with labels like Radiance, 88 Films, Arrow and Eureka all putting out a remarkable array of mouth-watering product.”

Still on the rental side, Snips Movies’ Dave Wain continued: “As always the challenge with owning a rental store in 2025/26 lies with telling people you exist. Social media has been integral to this as well as a growing number of YouTube subscribers, but perhaps the most powerful tool has been word of mouth. It seems that the customers of Snips just can't wait to tell their friends about their newfound weekly pilgrimage! With regard to 2026, it's pretty much more of the same. Spring will see a moderate tweak to the layout which should both increase capacity and create a better and more customer friendly flow to the store, while there's also plans afoot to harness the power of the Merseyside film community in order to truly embed Snips among the regions most ardent cinephiles.”

And on to box office, with the 2025 figures, certainly for films released towards the end of the year, will determine some of the home entertainment prospects for the first part of the year and, according to Comscore, things are looking good. Total box office revenue for the year was £1.07 billion, the strongest year post-pandemic and up one per cent on 2024. It’s still below the £1.3 billion figure achieved in the five years leading up to 2020, when Covid-19 caused the figures to fall sharply, but shows the figures again creeping up – 2025 was the third post-pandemic year in succession where year-end totals have gone past the magic £1 billion mark. The year also saw the biggest ever number of saturation releases – titles opening at more than 250 cinemas – as the industry continued to recover from Covid and the subsequent strikes. The total number of titles released went past the 1,000 mark for the third year running. The top two films were A Minecraft Movie and the latest Bridget Jones, Mad About The Boy (£56.88m and £46.38m respectively), with the third biggest of the year, Wicked For Good, still on release. A further two of the top 10, Avatar Fire And Ice and Zootropolis 2, are also still playing at cinemas.

Universal was top theatrical distributor of the year, for the first time of the year, with a market share of 25.1 per cent, up form just under a fifth on 2024; it was the highest grossing top distributor since 2019, which was also the last time Universal topped the list. Second was Disney, Warner was third and Paramount and Sony fourth and fifth. Lionsgate was sixth, Studiocanal seventh, with the rest of the top 10 consisting of Entertainment, Trafalgar and Black Bear. The Comscore report added: “In total, 189 different distributors released films this year, up from 180 in 2024, 164 in 2023 and 136 in 2022. The Top 10 distributors’ films accounted for 89.5 per cent of box office, matching 2024 which showed improved diversity from a concentration of 91.5 per cent in 2023, 93.6 per cent in 2022 and 95.7 per cent in 2021.”

Comment on the Comscore figures came from chief executive of the UK Cinema Association Phil Clapp who said: “Although it saw only a small year-on-year increase in box office, 2025 undoubtedly marked a significant further step in the sector’s recovery following the challenges of recent years. The audience response to titles as varied as A Minecraft Movie, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Lilo & Stitch and most recently Wicked: For Good once again confirmed the public appetite for the big screen experience. With such a strong slate of films lined up for 2026, there is great optimism that the coming months will see significant further progress.” Chief executive of the Film Distributors’ Association Andy Leyshon noted: “It was good to see a box office increase in 2025, and having now witnessed a healthy level of theatrical stability over the last three years it is evident that the unique visual pleasure of a visit to the cinema remains the leading out-of-home entertainment choice for audiences. The task now is to kick on again to reach new cinema-going heights, and the impressive 2026 release slate packed full of rich promise with something for every viewing taste should continue the upward momentum. Bring it on!”

While the latest Avatar instalment, Fire And Ash, from Disney, has ruled at the box office over Christmas – £35.7 million and counting – alongside ongoing success stories such as Zootropolis 2 (another Disney hit with just under £30 million in receipts) and the juggernaut that is Wicked For Good (£46.9 million), there have been a few other noteworthy successes at cinemas during the holiday season. Boxing Day opener The Housemaid has earned more than £17.9 million for Lionsgate, a big number and a huge success for the Sydney Sweeney starrer, showing that no matter who she votes for in the US, she’s still box office gold. It’s a triumph too for Lionsgate’s belief in the film, its impressive marketing and the excellent word of mouth on the thriller. And then there’s A24’s Marty Supreme, looked after by Entertainment in the UK, one of the year’s most talked about and best marketed films, which has taken some £9.4 million so far. We saw it on New Year’s Day at a packed cinema, where it went down a storm, and word of mouth on the Timothee Chalet starrer is incredible. It’ll be interesting to see what happens on home entertainment, where A24 has often sold special, smartly packaged editions of its films online. Also worth noting is Picturehouse’s Pillion, which has now passed the £1 million mark. More on these, especially The Housemaid and Marty Supreme, in the coming weeks.

It’s good to see 2026 kicking off with another new imprint, as Anti-Worlds Releasing, the distributor run by Rook Films producer Andy Starke and publicist Zoe Flower, is launching a new label, Anti-Worlds Originals. The distributor set up with a mission to bring “unique, provocative and challenging cinema” to the market, will be releasing titles it has produced on physical media and eschewing video on demand. Its first two titles are hugely impressive. Mismantler, due at the end of January, is a collaboration between director Andrew Keogh and Stephen Stapleton and his Nurse With Wound project and grew from visuals he created for Stapleton’s industrial band on tour. It’s available in a limited edition, numbered Digipak and contains the film on Blu-ray as well as a CD of the soundtrack. Second is Bulk, the new film from Ben Wheatley, who moves between the commercial and the more experimental, and producer Starke. Bulk, a sci-fi thriller, falls into the latter category and again comes in a limited edition, numbered Digipak containing both 4K UHD and Blu-ray discs. It lands in March on the back of a nationwide tour of the film hosted by Wheatley himself. In its mission statement, the label said: “Anti-Worlds Originals will not be available on VOD - it's a broken system that doesn't support films and film-makers so we're charging a little more - but profits will go to make more films. Each release will be lovingly curated and packaged in consultation with the film-makers...and very limited. When they are gone...they are gone! Here we hope to build a unique library of weird and wonderful films that otherwise may not find the light of day... lets celebrate the different!” More on Anti-Worlds Originals in the coming weeks…

At the end of last year, we reported on the latest SpongeBob film outing and the marketing tie-in with the lovely people at Fat Hippo, who developed a menu themed around the film. And this week there’s more burger-related promotional goodness, this time from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, which has partnered with Smashburger to offer up a tasty treat based around home entertainment release Sisu Road To Revenge. The sequel to one of our favourite films in recent years (and certainly the best featuring a Bedlington Terrier) is out now on digital and across DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD, Steelbook and two-film SKUs featuring the sequel and the original on February 16. The “fiery” Sisu Stack will, the announcement said, “consist of two signature Smashburger smashed pattys, delicious hot honey, spicy jalapeños and cheese, topped off with crispy onions and classic chipotle mayo”. It’s available from Smashburger’s own sites around the country and from Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats and is, the release further noted, “the perfect juicy treat to enjoy while watching SISU: Road to Revenge”. It came out on January 10 and will be available until the end of the month.

Landing in stores between Christmas and the New Year, on December 29 to be precise, was another release from one of our favourite imprints Shameless, the label with the yellow packaging (“yellow mania", as it says), acclaimed giallo (rated by those in the know as being one of the finest entrants into the genre), The House Wirth The Laughing Window. It’s not your average giallo, eschewing the more outré horror and, as noted by genre experts, referring a “slow burn”. The 4K restoration was released in both 4K UHD Blu-ray and standard Blu-ray SKUs, complete with a rat of extras including interviews with cast and crew, including legendary director Pupi Avati;. The company’s Garwin Davison said: “It’s our most significant release of 2025, we put a lot of work in this release with a great emphasis on a new grading which makes this, our release, the only Dolby Vision version available at present. It looks amazing. We screened it at the Regent Street Cinema ahead of the release and it looked superb on the big screen, and even the projectionist himself came out to congratulate the look of this 50-year-old movie.”

Where would The Raygun be without those regular updates from boutique labels and 2026 got off to a good start as Radiance unveiled its slate for April. Here’s the company’s Bruno Savill de Jong on the company’s titles released in the fourth month of the year. He said: “We are very pleased by the reaction to our first announcements of 2026. There's been a steadily growing interest in Jacques Rozier and so we are happy to be able to present his complete feature film set with Time to Play. Almodóvar's woeful underrepresentation on physical media is course-corrected with a UHD of his early classic Matador, and we're glad to bring another Damiano Damiani investigative-thriller to the mix with Confessions of a Police Captain. We also venture into the 2010s for the first time with Johnnie To's overlooked romantic melodrama Romancing in Thin Air. Plus, we present another exciting cult classic for Transmission with the nitro-fuelled Highway to Hell, courtesy of Drop Dead Fred director Ate De Jong.”

Also landing in the post-New Year deluge of emails is confirmation of a number of release date for forthcoming biggies due in the first quarter, including some mouth-watering physical media prospects. Dated titles include Paramount and Edgar Wright’s updated take on the latest from a revitalised franchise in the shape of Predator Badlands, out on February 23 from 20th Century Studios via Elevation; the third in the successful Now You See Me franchise, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, from Lionsgate on March 2 and, on the same date, Paramount’s Stephen King adapted, Edgar Wright directed dystopian thriller The Running Man.

Meanwhile, we’ll end with a few top 10s for 2025, and one of the most intriguing ones we came across was from our friends at the aforementioned Radiance, who revealed 10 titles that it had tried – and failed – to get for release over the past 12 months, which provides a fascinating insight into the thinking of an independent, boutique label. Also on Letterboxd, and we don’t normally do this, but having kept a complete record of everything we watched in 2025 on the film-related social media site (thanks to our oft-mentioned ill-health over the past 12 months, we racked up around 350 films), including all the Blu-rays we watched for coverage in Film Stories, The Raygun and elsewhere, we compiled a top 10 of the best Blu-rays we watched over in 2025. It’s neither comprehensive or definitive, but it does feature some goodies. You can see it here. To be in the running at the end of 2026, ensure you send us check discs, finished copies, free stuff and bribes to the usual address.

And finally, Sight & Sound published its top Blu-rays of the year, giving praise to the likes of its own parent the BFI’s video arm, Second Run and Radiance (“a few short years after its founding, Radiance is now an established force in the industry”), and saying: “As monthly streaming subscription costs increase and their narrowly curated libraries diminish, the reassuring permanence of physical media remains. The selection of home entertainment packages chosen by our critics is just a handful among dozens and dozens of excellent releases, with boutique labels presenting pristine versions of newly restored films, both classic and underseen. Box-sets were at their best this year, curated mini-seasons whose strength often lay in their depth. For those who aren't committed collectors, DVDs, Blu-rays and 4k UHD discs may seem passé. but the same disregard was given to keeping hold of vinyl a few decades ago. If you're one of those discerning cinephiles who has their walls lined with carefully organised discs, my prediction is that you're ahead of the trend.” The 10 are Abbas Kiarostami – Early Shorts and and Features (Criterion), L’amour Fou (Radiance), Chantal Akerman Collection Volume 1 (BFI), A Confucian Confusion/ Mahjong: Two Films By Edward Yang (Criterion), La Haine (BFI), Martial Law: L Wei’s Wuxia World (Eureka), Naked Came The Stranger (Melusine), The Strange Affair (Vinegar Syndrome), Wicked Games: Three Films By Robert Hossein (Radiance) and World Noir Volume 3 (Radiance).

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TRAILERS OF THE WEEK

This week’s biggie…

https://youtu.be/kH1XlwHQv9o?si=e5BPdokX00cc_cZX

Not about Feargal Sharkey…

https://youtu.be/j6uDeBYDHu4?si=DS21mchOIoTNLnkc