Over the past few years, the movie business has suffered one setback after another. First, COVID shuttered theaters for months, prompting a wave of release-date delays, and halted filming on major movies, which only resumed with costly new health measures in place that added millions to budgets. Then, 2023 saw historic writers and actors strikes that scuttled production once again, resulting in another monthslong work stoppage as a fresh crop of films saw their opening weekends pushed back. All of this has left theaters with fewer films to showcase, which analysts believe is partly the cause of the decline in year-over-year revenues.
“We’re still in a post-pandemic recovery mode,” says Eric Wold, an analyst with B. Riley Securities. “It is taking time to get people to return to theaters and to have a slate that has breadth and diversity.”
So, what worked? Sequels and special effects-heavy adventures dominated the 2024 box office, while family-friendly films finally rebounded in a major way. Nine of the 10 highest-grossing worldwide releases were part of franchises (“Inside Out 2,” “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Despicable Me 4,” “Moana 2” and “Dune: Part II” among them), while “Wicked,” the only original movie among the top earners, was adapted from a wildly popular 20-year-old Broadway musical that leans heavily on “Wizard of Oz” lore. That was in stark contrast to the previous year, when the top three releases — “Barbie,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Oppenheimer” — arrived without a roman numeral in the title.
“It seems like everything Hollywood is offering is a sequel, a prequel or a reboot,” says Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “But can you blame the studios? That’s what audiences are feasting on.”
When studios did try to launch original properties — or at least to produce movies like “The Fall Guy” (a reboot of a long-forgotten ’80s show) that weren’t part of long-established film series — they mostly struck out. Take “If,” Paramount and John Krasinski’s $110 million fantasy comedy, which faltered at the box office with $190 million globally, or Apple’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” a Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson-led “meet cute” that tapped out at $42.2 million worldwide — less than half its $100 million budget. Although the rise of streaming services like Netflix and the collapse of home entertainment offerings like DVDs have scrambled the economics of moviemaking, here’s some critical context: Exhibitors keep roughly 50% of ticket sales, so movies must double their production budgets and marketing expenses to make money theatrically. The reception of these films doesn’t make studios eager to take risks on properties that are untested.
“Audiences say they want original titles, yet they’re doubling down and supporting the safer options of titles they know,” says Disney‘s executive VP of global theatrical distribution Tony Chambers.
