2024 U.S. Box Office Finals At $8.7 Billion: How The Studios Stand
Even though there’s still $2 billion-$3 billion missing in the post-Covid domestic box office, there was plenty to be thankful for in 2024, which is coming in at an estimated $8.72B, off 3% from 2023’s $9B. That figure is factored from Comscore and Deadline calculations.
First of all, many were expecting 2024 to final at $8B, so the fact that we’re $720 million ahead in a year that was half-wrecked by the aftermath of the strikes is praiseworthy. There were fewer tentpoles in Q1, not to mention there wasn’t a Marvel Studios movie to fire up summer in early May — that didn’t come until late July with Deadpool & Wolverine, which at $211.4M was the biggest opening of the year.
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Before the first weekend in May, the domestic box office was lagging 20% behind 2023’s running cume. As of December 31, the 2024 U.S.-Canada box office was only 3% behind 2023. That’s how much ground we made up, and that speaks volumes about moviegoing. That catchup is an indication that great content remains a key draw for bringing audiences back to cinemas — because, arguably, all the bigger and better films opened from summer onward.
The number of movies opening at $20M or more in 2024 was down versus 2023, 34 films to 40, but the number of titles seeing $100M+ openings remained the same at five (Inside Out 2 at $154.2M, Deadpool & Wolverine $211.4M, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice $111M, Wicked $112.5M and Moana 2 $139.7M).
The number of movies grossing north of $100M dipped from 24 to 22 last year. But the number of titles grossing more than $200M (eight) and $300M+ (five) remained steady. According to NATO and Comscore, PG-rated movies drove $2.8B at the box office, up from 2023’s $2.1B.
The domestic marketplace remains a landscape of haves and have-nots. While IP-driven tentpoles and original genre movies still are good bets, for the most part, everything in the middle tends to be a roll of the dice. Original films require committed and laser-bespoke marketing campaigns, while the motion picture industry’s overall problem going forward in what’s expected to be a normal 2025 is bringing back former frequent moviegoers who’ve changed their habits entirely in a streaming-laden post-pandemic world.
Here is how the major studios fared during the past 12 months:
Disney $2.219B (+17% over 2023) from 30 titles (new and carryovers). Gross includes monies from 20th Century Studios and Searchlight labels. The Mouse House was back in all its Pixar, 20th Century Studios, original animation and Marvel Studios glory and that’s great for the industry. This again was due to CEO Bob Iger’s doubling down on fewer, higher quality films spurred from rich franchises. (We’ll excuse the half-assed prequel Mufasa which will remain hundreds of millions off of the $1.66B earned by The Lion King in 2019.) Disney is the only major studio to surpass $2B in the post-Covid era, and the only studio to deliver two $1B-plus grossing movies at the global box office this year, those being Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. Even 20th Century Studios rallied with reboots of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ($171.1M) and Alien: Romulus ($105.3M) and Searchlight’s James Mangold-directed Bob Dylan biopic is bringing older audiences back to cinemas with $28.4M since Christmas and counting.
Top 3 movies: Inside Out 2 ($652.9M, highest industry title of the year), Deadpool & Wolverine ($636.7M, second highest industry title), Moana 2 ($403.9M, fourth highest grossing industry title of 2024)
Longest window (to PVOD): Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine (both 67 days)
Shortest window (to PVOD): The First Omen (53 days)
$100M+ hopes for 2025: A slew, count ’em. Captain America: Brave New World (Feb. 14), Snow White (March 21), Thunderbolts* (May 2), Elio (June 13), Fantastic Four: First Steps (July 25), Tron Ares (Oct. 10), Predator: Badlands (Nov. 7), Zootopia 2 (Nov. 26) and Avatar: Fire & Ash (Dec. 19).
Universal $1.88B (-3% from 2023) including Focus Features’ box office from 31 titles (new and carryovers).
When Universal wants to hit it big, it largely does so at the box office. Case in point: five films that grossed north of $100M in 2024. Musicals are a gamble, and Uni has gone belly up on such attempts as Cats and Dear Evan Hanson in the past, but execs knew they had a female Harry Potter-esque draw in Wicked: Part One which in less than two months became the third-highest grossing movie of the year with $403.98M. The studio which is known for yielding mass-appealing original fare tried to start a franchise with the Ryan Gosling-Emily Blunt $150M mixed action-romcom The Fall Guy but fell greatly short at $92M. Focus Features finally found its footing post Covid with Nosferatu ($48M) this Christmas, which funny enough is one of the better horror movies to fare well for Univesral in 2024, a genre they’re typically strong with. Genre wasn’t big for Uni with Night Swim, Abigail and the ultraviolent action movie Monkey Man.
Top 3 movies: Wicked ($403.98M), Despicable Me 4 ($361M), Twisters ($267.7M).
Longest window (to PVOD): Despicable Me 4 (34 days)
Shortest window (to PVOD): A plethora at 18 days including The Wild Robot, Night Swim, Monkey Man, Abigail, Fall Guy, Speak No Evil and Focus Features movies Lisa Frankenstein, Drive Away Dolls, Back to Black, The Bikeriders and Piece by Piece.
$100M+ hopes for 2025: How to Train Your Dragon (June 13), M3GAN 3.0 (June 27), Jurassic World: Rebirth (July 2), Wicked: For Good (Nov. 21) and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Dec. 5).
Warner Bros. $1.164B (-17% from 2023)
The studio of Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack still gets across $1 billion this year even sans a mega pic like 2023’s Barbie, which remains the studio’s highest grossing ever at $1.44B. Warner Bros came out swinging last year, lifting the box office from the strike doldrums with Legendary’s Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in Q1 and Q2; give the Burbank lot full credit for that. More was expected to be in store in 2024 with ambitious $169M to near $200M swings Furiosa and Joker: Folie a Deux. The masses, however, thumbed those down. Next year brings the revived DC under James Gunn and Peter Safran with Superman, major bets on auteurs — which Warner Bros is historically known for — with Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Paul Thomas Anderson’s untitled Leonardo DiCaprio movie and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride.
Top 3 movies: Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice ($294.1M), Dune: Part Two ($282.1M), Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($196.3M).
Longest window (to PVOD): Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong (46 days)
Shortest window (to PVOD): Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim (14 days)
$100M+ hopes for 2025: Companion (Jan. 31), Minecraft (April 4), Sinners (April 18) and Superman (July 11)
Sony at $1B (even with 2023), including Sony Pictures Classics and Crunchyroll. Sony major counts 28 titles. The Culver City lot is about covering its bases with co-financiers, in an aim for profit when it comes to movies big and small including wipeouts Kraven the Hunter and Saturday Night. The studio arguably fired up a streak this summer among the majors with Garfield and Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Even though Venom: The Last Dance was the lowest grossing of the three in the franchise, the studio will contend it makes superhero movies at a cost lower than the competition (this one costing $120M). Also at a near half billion in global box, Venom: The Last Dance, was profitable. Execs continue to do cartwheels over the thrifty $25M Wayfarer Studios production It Ends With Us which they co-financed despite the movie’s recent tabloid headlines between its star/producer Blake Lively and director/co-star Justin Baldoni. Sony is about making cultural touchstones at the cinema and bringing back dormant audiences, and they can wave a lot of poms poms when it comes to the femme-skewing It Ends With Us and the 2023 carryover Anyone But You. Such female fare isn’t just for streaming. Next to Disney, which boasts the longest windows at 60-plus days, Sony comes in second with several titles at 46 days. As we’ve written, Sony must next decide what to do with its deeper universe Marvel canon after bombs Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter.
Top 3 movies: Bad Boys: Ride or Die ($193.5M), It Ends With Us ($148.5M) and Venom: The Last Dance ($139.7M)
Longest window (to PVOD): All at 46 days include Venom: The Last Dance, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, The Garfield Movie, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, The Forge and It Ends With Us.
Shortest window (to PVOD): Afraid (18 days)
$100M+ hopes for 2025: Karate Kid: Legends (May 30) and I Know What You Did Last Summer (July 18)
Paramount $879.5M (5% over 2023) from 12 titles. With five No. 1 openings and even more vibrant success from those movies which didn’t debut at the top of the chart — i.e. A Quiet Place: Day One — the Melrose lot remains in solid footing as it awaits new owner Skydance. There’s much to celebrate in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 beating a kingpin Disney franchise title at the Christmas box office, Mufasa. There were some sighs, but nothing too earth-shattering, in If‘s lower-than-expected opening ($33M versus $40M; still a No. 1 debut). Transformers One was an upset, failing to appeal to fanboys and too juvenile in its execution with a $75M production cost and mere $129M WW result. While incoming administrations enjoy shaking up executive staffs, David Ellison would be wise to keep the studio’s distribution, marketing and iconoclastic development suite intact. The question becomes, who co-finances the former co-financier’s movies? Meaning who takes over for Skydance on such big titles as Mission: Impossible, Star Trek and future Top Guns? It remains to be seen whether the untitled Trey Parker-Matt Stone Naked Gun reboot and Channing Tatum’s true crime feature Roofman can reach broader audiences; on paper they sound promising. In regards to whether incoming studio chief Jeff Shell implements a fierce shortened window strategy with theatrical ala Universal, that remains to be seen. Some believe he won’t as that was a mandate placed upon him to provide premium content to Comcast cable boxes.
Top 3 movies: Gladiator II ($164.5M), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 ($151.4M) and A Quiet Place: Day One ($138.9M)
Longest window (to PVOD): Mean Girls (39 days)
Shortest window (to PVOD): All at 32 days are If, Quiet Place: Day One, Transformers One and Smile 2.
$100M+ hopes for 2025: Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning (May 23), Running Man (Nov. 7) and Spongebob Squarepants (Dec. 19)
Lionsgate $252.2M (-57% from 2023) from 22 new and carryover movies including multiplatform titles. After surging over six-fold in 2023 (vs. 2022) thanks to franchise titles such as John Wick: Chapter 4 and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Lionsgate is down in a year when none of its movies could open at No. 1 or leg out to cumes north of $50M stateside. The average opening for a Lionsgate wide release in 2024 was $6.8M. The numbers speak for themselves. Realize that thestudio did over $252M from 22 new and carryover titles while near competitor Amazon MGM Studios did a similar box office result off nine movies. Sources point to former Lionsgate motion picture boss Joe Drake for last year’s withered slate, which includes the $120M bomb Borderlands. That title only made $15.4M domestic and under $40M worldwide. There’s a lot to be fixed at Lionsgate if it wants to emulate the success of rival studios, make culturally relevant movies and launch new franchises for generations to come. Execs should evaluate whether their marketing machine is truly yielding the proper box office results. There’s potential in 2025’s lineup including Ballerina, Michael Jackson biopic Michael, Aziz Ansari’s comedy Good Fortune and Paul Feig’s Housemaid.
Top 3 movies: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever ($39.9M), The Strangers: Chapter 1 ($35.2M) and Imaginary ($28M)
Longest window (to PVOD): Megalopolis (56 days)
Shortest window (to PVOD): Never Let Go (14 days)
$100M+ hopes for 2025: Ballerina (June 6) and Michael (Oct. 3)
Amazon MGM Studios $249.7M (-8% from 2023) off 9 titles.
The industry and exhibitors rely on the streamer who is committed to theatrical for mass appealing and mid-mass appealing counterprogramming. Absent this year was a $100M-grossing tentpole ala last year’s Creed III. Will there be more tentpoles? It appears 007 is in a stalemate per a recent WSJ article. Also, will Amazon MGM Studios extend their windows or condition moviegoers to expect their titles to come straight to Prime instead? Why the rush to get it up on Prime Video? In the case of Red One and its 28-day theatrical window, Amazon MGM Studios’ hands were tied in that it was a Christmas movie. Best to drop on Prime Video now than to wait a year. They’re certainly not shrugging off the 50M global viewership record on the very expensive $200M Dwayne Johnson movie, which would be a dud for another motion picture studio; Amazon MGM Studios is celebrating it as a win. Are more $200M Dwayne Johnson movies in store? In regards to everything else, Amazon MGM Studios, how much red ink will you bleed if you wait 46 or 60 days until it hits Prime? Probably not a lot.
Top 3 movies: Red One ($96.7M), The Beekeeper ($66.2M) and Challengers ($50.1M)
Potential Breakouts for 2025: Ben Affleck’s The Accountant 2 (April 25) and the Christ Pratt sci-fi title Mercy (Aug. 15)
A24 at $201M (+47% from 2023) from 24 titles. The arthouse hipster label saw roughly a third of that take coming from its second highest grossing movie of all time, Alex Garland’s Civil War ($68.6M), which also repped the label’s biggest opening of all-time at $25.5M. Talk about original fare working; the politically charged Civil War was it. A24 continues to be an established brand for the 18-34 set, and still pushes the bar on cinema (e.g. the what’s-old-is-new tearjerker We Live in Time at $24.6M). This year saw Civil War, We Live in Time, 2023’s The Iron Claw and Heretic land in A24’s top grossing 13 films of all-time. From what we can glean, A24 is absent any lofty blunders ala 2023’s $35M Ari Aster misfire, Beau Is Afraid, however, the $20M Nicole Kidman naughty film Babygirl was off to slow start at the Christmas box office. Rival arthouse and mainstream studios envy A24’s je ne sais quoi. Even if A24 grosses aren’t mega, their movies leave an indelible cult mark.
Top 3 movies: Civil War ($68.6M), Heretic ($26.6M) and We Live in Time ($24.6M)
Potential Breakouts for 2025: A24 has yet to yield a $100M-grossing movie, but it has the Jenna Ortega-starring Death of a Unicorn set for the spring, Josh Safdie’s Timothee Chalamet-fronted ping pong pic Marty Supreme on Dec. 25 and the Benny Safdie-directed The Smashing Machine with Dwayne Johnson as UFC champ Mark Kerr in the pipeline.
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