As expected, the Q1 2024 box office was soft given a lower number of wide releases which stems from last year’s Hollywood strikes. The Q1 box office total of $1.6B was down from last year’s $1.7B and the pre-pandemic level of $2.7B (five-year average). The leading two films were Dune: Part Two and Kung Fu Panda 4. Pre-pandemic, Disney was the largest film producer by far and for the quarter, the only Disney release in the top 50 was Wish ($3.3M) at #47. (See our last story on Disney.) Given ticket price inflation, the decline in box office receipts of -6%, implies about a -10% decline in attendance. Placer visitation suggests that Cinemark modestly outperformed AMC and Regal in performance.
Last week brought CinemaCon, which is the industry’s annual meet-up in Vegas where the studios preview many of the summer and holiday blockbusters, as well as give a tease of longer-dated releases, which provides analysts a tabulation of wide releases in 2025. Fewer releases this year is a primary driver for the year’s likely box office decline. In 2025, analysts expect over 150 wide releases, well above this year’s 120 and near the pre-pandemic level of 165, which means that 2025 will highly likely be up year-over-year. For context, the number of wide releases in 2023 was 130.
The box office centers around two periods, Memorial Day to Labor Day and Thanksgiving through New Year’s. For summer 2024, the industry is counting on strong performances from Deadpool and Wolverine and Inside Out 2 (Disney), Despicable Me and Twisters (Universal Studios), and Mad Max (Warner Bros.). The industry will be watching Inside Out 2 given that its predecessor performed exceptionally well ($859M worldwide), but post-pandemic Pixar movies have failed to fill the seats. By contrast, Universal’s family films have done well, for example, Minions: The Rise of Gru did $940M in 2022 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie did $1.4B in 2023.
It won’t be until the Q4 holiday period that releases start to ramp, including Gladiator 2, Joker 2, The Lord of the Rings, Moana 2, Mufasa, Venom, Wicked, among others. Analysts forecast the quarter box office revenue at nearly $2.9B, which would be even with the pre-pandemic level. That quarter too will be critical for Disney to show that they can create a huge draw (like they did pre-pandemic) with their releases, and so, the spotlight will be on Mufasa: The Lion King and Moana 2. Disney CEO Bob Iger has been quite transparent in saying that Disney’s releases over the past two years have failed to produce the kind of awe and draw that they did pre-pandemic because the company was trying to produce too much between streaming and theatrical releases. These two films had the time and care, and given the external scrutiny on the company, one would expect them to by stunningly crafted and brilliantly marketed. More broadly, there is also concern that there may be sequel fatigue by audiences, and as such, new franchises need to be created to foster post-pandemic success, one will notice that all the titles previously listed are sequels. Last year’s hit Barbie shows that it can be done. How Q4 plays will also set longer-term expectations for the industry, which will influence decisions about screen upgrades and new/existing locations, and as such, commercial real estate in general. Upgrades and high-potential new locations are key drivers of the box office, but dependent upon the operators being able to generate an attractive return on investment (ROI), and that depends on the production industry delivering lots of new Barbies.
