Labor Day’s passing brought the summer box office season to an end. The summer delivered $3.6B in ticket sales (per Comscore), below last year’s Barbenheimer-fueled $4.0B and the pre-pandemic average of $4.3B. The decline was expected given fewer blockbuster releases due to the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes. The table below shows that Cinemark took the most share, whereas Regal was in line with the smaller operators. Smaller operators, in aggregate, secularly lose share because they have fewer premium large format (PLF) screens. PLF screens outpace non-PLF screens for visually-rich, action-heavy films like Deadpool & Wolverine.
The biggest domestic office hit for summer 2024 was Inside Out 2 ($651M), followed by Deadpool & Wolverine ($604M), followed by Despicable Me 4 ($356M). Looking forward, the next big release window is the Thanksgiving to Christmas window. For the coming window, there are a bounteous amount of blockbusters such as Gladiator II, Kraven the Hunter, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, Mufasa, and Moana 2. By contrast, last year’s holiday window was held back by fewer big releases due to the strikes, as such, this year’s will be up year-over-year given significantly more large releases. Moreover, this year’s releases are likely better imagined and crafted than those produced during pandemic restrictions (which weighed on 2023’s window as well). Better imagined & crafted and received films was what made the summer of 2024 a blockbuster of a season.
