It wasn’t good, but it could’ve been a lot worse. Given the lingering effects of last year’s Hollywood labor strikes, the relative lack of big movies and a dismal first half of the year at the box office, the film industry is breathing a collective sigh of relief as 2024 comes to a close.
This year’s box office revenue could total $8.75 billion in the U.S. and Canada, according to estimates from data firm Comscore. That figure would put the box office about 3% lower than in 2023. More dispiriting for theaters, it’s down about 23% compared with 2019.
But the numbers also represent a remarkable turnaround considering revenue was down 27.5% just six months ago after a weak slate and a string of high-profile flops, before Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” hit theaters in June.
“It was not your typical year because there was no traditional road map to follow through the entire calendar,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “The fact that we’re even here shows that audiences really love going to the movies, but they need a path to follow to get there.”
While 2024 presented unique challenges for the film business, moviegoing still faces a slew of hurdles that were accelerated by the pandemic.
Once-regular movie watchers aren’t seeing films in theaters at the same rate as before, waiting until their preferred movies show up as premium digital rentals or on streaming platforms. Films are also in theaters for shorter periods, meaning they’re often gone by the time casual moviegoers decide to check out a flick.
Last year’s strikes by Hollywood writers and actors also resulted in many movie releases being pushed out of 2024 due to production delays or a need for more marketing time. That meant there weren’t as many wide releases for moviegoers to get excited about.
As of Dec. 18, there were 95 domestic releases in 2,000 theaters this year, according to data from the National Assn. of Theater Owners trade group. That paled in comparison with 2023 (101 films). Next year is expected to be stronger, with 110 wide release movies on the schedule.
“As we were coming into the year, as a result of the strikes last year, I think there was clearly just some concern about what impact that would have,” said Sean Gamble, chief executive of Plano, Texas-based movie theater chain Cinemark. “The big thing that we’re just continuing to keep an eye on is what is the timing for volume, and where is volume going to fully fill out over the next couple of years.”
A lighter release schedule, combined with bombs early in the year, such as Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Furiosa: A Mad Max Story” and Universal Pictures’ “The Fall Guy,” had industry players feeling apocalyptic about the movies. But a strong string of hits throughout the summer and holidays has put some wind back in the sails.
“We’re ending the year in a better place than we were at the beginning of the year,” Tony Chambers, head of theatrical distribution at the Walt Disney Studios, said of the industry’s progress. “Part of it was how well these summer titles worked.”
Animation was a major win for the year, grossing more than $2 billion — a quarter of annual domestic box office revenue — and the biggest percentage ever for the genre. Summer films like Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment’s “Despicable Me 4” and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” the latter of which became the highest-grossing film of the year with nearly $1.7 billion in global sales, brought families to theaters in droves. Months later, Disney’s “Moana 2” helped anchor a massive Thanksgiving weekend box office haul.
Worldwide, animated films brought in more than $5 billion this year, according to Comscore. Analysts have credited family films — and more broadly, PG-rated titles, such as Universal’s “Wicked” — with boosting this year’s box office. The films not only resonated with their target audience of families, but also featured well-known and beloved characters, which can ease trepidation among families wrestling with whether a trip to the theaters is worth it.
While animated movies were a clear winner this summer, some superheroes also did their jobs. Marvel Studios’ latest film, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” grossed $1.3 billion worldwide, boosting the Disney-owned studio’s prospects after a string of lackluster films. The film also proved there is a niche for R-rated and irreverent storylines within the House of Mouse’s largely family-friendly and PG-13 superhero universe.
The summer may have been bolstered by blockbusters, but Osgood Perkins’ original indie “Longlegs” also contributed to the box office momentum. The breakout horror film, which stars Nicolas Cage, handed independent distributor Neon its biggest opening ever, with $22 million, and came after an extensive and cryptic marketing campaign.
As summer turned into fall, the string of hits continued with Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” and the heavily marketed “Wicked.” The continued momentum helped affirm that theatrical movies are still in demand, said Gamble of Cinemark.
In a recent meeting in Los Angeles with studio executives, he said a common topic of conversation was the meaning of this year’s box office for the health of theatrical exhibition.
“Everybody’s viewed the collective results of this year as a really positive thing,” Gamble said. “What we continue to see are examples that suggest the enthusiasm for moviegoing remains very robust.”
Disney had an especially good year, as the studio crossed the $2-billion mark in domestic box office with three of the top five films of 2024 — “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” each of which cracked $1 billion globally at the box office, and “Moana 2,” which has now grossed almost $821 million worldwide. That puts the Burbank media and entertainment giant at about 25% of this year’s box office.
“The successes we’ve had this year show that audiences are eager for that unbeatable experience of watching a great movie in a theater with a crowd of people who are enjoying it just as much as they are,” Alan Bergman, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, said in a statement.
While blockbusters filled seats in theaters this year, there were also plenty of duds.
Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s massive, $120-million passion project “Megalopolis” hit a hard wall at the box office, grossing just $4 million in its opening weekend and less than $14 million total worldwide. The loosely Roman-themed fable about an architect in a futuristic New York was anathema to major studios, leaving Coppola to shoulder much of the financial risk himself.
Kevin Costner’s western epic “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1” met a similar fate, grossing just $38 million worldwide after the “Yellowstone” actor put up his own property to fund the film. The movie was the first in a planned four-part saga. After the first movie’s reception, the sequel was pulled from its scheduled August theatrical release.
Despite the success of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” other superhero-related films didn’t fare as well theatrically, including Sony Pictures’ “Madame Web” and “Kraven the Hunter,” along with Warner Bros.’ comic book sequel-turned-musical “Joker: Folie à Deux.” Eli Roth’s video game adaptation “Borderlands” also failed to connect with audiences, as did Lionsgate’s reboot of horror film “The Crow.”
Still, film industry executives and analysts say they feel hopeful about 2025 — a year in which the effects of the strikes and the pandemic are further in the rearview mirror, and the cadence of movies gets closer to normal.
Industry leaders said 2025 should be a return to the trajectory the business was on before the pandemic and the strikes. Next year’s slate is stocked with superhero fare (“Captain America: Brave New World,” “Thunderbolts” and a new DC reboot of “Superman”), action films (“Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” and “Jurassic World Rebirth”) as well as sequels to popular films (“Now You See Me 3,” “Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good”).
The success of — and reliance on — sequels and reboots is also going to force a future reckoning for new stories.
Though original films like A24’s “Civil War,” Amazon MGM Studios’ “Challengers” and “Longlegs” cashed in at the box office, the entirety of the top 10 highest-grossing films domestic or worldwide this year were sequels or films based on existing stories (“Wicked,” as an adaptation of the 21-year-old Broadway play and a revision of the classic “Wizard of Oz,” is included in this).
“What studios and exhibition and the industry needs to focus on is possibly how to cut through with original content,” said Chambers of Disney. “Being able to have original titles cut through, that’s going to be the challenge.”