Yes I know we still have the rest of October, November and December but I'd like to know what this sub thinks of The Box Office in 2024, was it healthy? Is Theaters and The Box Office still have a bright future? I know we did get some major flops this year but I still think overall the year has been great so far
by RepeatEconomy2618
14 Comments
If it weren’t for Disney theaters would be crying blood.
To some it was even a surprise, but that company has proven times and again why they exist. They just needed to fix a few things, which for now it seems they did (few more to fix and all good).
Yes, I know we’ve had big hits (Dune II, Inside Out 2, etc) and little hits (The Beekeeper, Longlegs, , etc) and middle-of-the-road successes (Bad Boys 4, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, etc), but if you were to check a list of **ALL** the movies released in cinemas this year, there are still way too many movies that failed to recoup the money spent to make them (The Fall Guy, Furiosa, etc).
A thinking I saw quite a lot of back in May/June was this idea that “Blockbuster Hollywood” could burn and that – amongst the ashes – a new era of “70’s New Hollywood” would arise. I don’t think that’s possible. Back then, new filmmakers were telling new stories that The Hays Code wouldn’t have allowed even a decade earlier. These days, you have movies like Drive-Away Dolls and Love Lies Bleeding come and go and barely make a dent at the box office. Maybe they do better on PVOD and/or streaming, but they’re not gonna help the cinemas stay open.
***Too Long Didn’t Read Version – I’m glad we’ve had many successes this year, but I’m concerned for the post-Covid 19 era of cinemas staying open.***
Theatres are still product dependent and what product audiences want is volatile.
Look at It Ends With Us doing better than Joker 2. Expect more Hoover / Booktok adaptations on the horizon. Speaking of Horizon, that Yellowstone audience couldn’t get Costner’s saga off the ground but then Twisters was able to survive Deadpool & Wolverine. Nobody knows anything.
The indie market has been doing better partially thanks to Longlegs, Civil War, The Substance, Late Night with the Devil, Thelma and soon Terrifier 3.
Looking at the future, 2025 can go either way but 2026 could be another 2019.
It started slow, then picked back up in the summer, and then it went back to being slow this fall so far. Hopefully the final two months pick things back up.
The strikes fucked a lot up by pushing a lot of stuff into 2025/ 2026.
It should’ve done better. Should not have had so many flops.
I doubt that even without the strikes this would have been a significant improvement over 2023 which is worrisome. I don’t think the box office will be back to Pre covid levels until like 2026 or 2027
I feel exactly the same the past few years. Theaters are surviving on blockbusters and not much else.
Joker bombing ruined October. October’s domestic gross will be under 500m. Maybe, under 450m. Could be the lowest grossing October in 20 years. All it takes is one blockbuster to bomb to destroy a month.
It works the other way as well. Deadpool and Inside Out combine to gross almost 1.3b at the domestic box office. If those two movies are still hits and combine to gross a billion that’s 300m off the summer box office. The other summer releases wouldn’t have filled the gap. People don’t go to the theater that much. They are more picky.
So, what we need is one or two remaining blockbusters this year to massive exceed expectations because thinking a bunch of smaller films will fill the gap created by a box office flop isnt what we’ve seen the past 3 years.
Well-made movies will always triumph and stand against the test of time. Furiosa didn’t make Fury Road numbers but it was mostly positively receive and ppl on Twitter are raving about.
Tbh, if Disney/Searchlight gave *Kinds of Kindness* wide theatrical rollout, I think it would’ve at least made its budget. Most NA/EU got a theatrical run while most Asian countries were skipped and instead was shadow dropped on Disney+, such a slap to the face after *Poor Things* financial success and awards szn wins.
Whether people want to admit it or not, big IP’s drive people to theaters. And, because of the delays from the strikes, there weren’t many big IPs in theaters this year. The box office wasn’t great, but when it had big IPs people cared about it did phenomenally well (Inside Out, Deadpool, Despicable Me, Godzilla). I think this is just a lull year and the next two years will be a lot bigger because there’s a lot bigger releases
Also, I think Mubi should’ve given *The Substance* a PVOD release on Christmas day instead of 10/29, keep it in theaters and IMO do a release rollout in East Asia around Oct-Nov, I can see it pulling an *Alien Romulus* hit in China especially the sci-fi elements.
I dunno man, if I were Mubi – I would’ve asked Busan and Tokyo int’l film festivals to have screenings there like a week prior to its release.
Set aside China, it could win over Korean and Japanese audience.
I think the struggles are less “theatergoing is on its last breath” (people might be going less, but the successes this year show that many will still go if they feel the pull). It’s more “Hollywood has no idea what audiences want” or even worse, “audiences have no idea what they want, even though they say they do.” Makes it all very unpredictable and volatile.
It needs one more massive hit