How F-Bombs and Family Fare Saved the 2024 Box Office
For much of the past two decades, if not longer, Hollywood relied on PG-13 fare to rally the masses. Slapping a big-budget event pic with a PG rating could alienate older kids, teens and young adults (the latter are the most frequent moviegoers). Case in point: Remember the choice to change the rating from PG to PG-13 for the fourth and fifth Harry Potter movies? The franchise saw a spike in grosses for films that had the more mature rating.
The past year upended this long-held theory, with PG fare — including Universal’s smash hit Wicked — accounting for as much as 30 percent of domestic ticket sales, a record according to Comscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “2024 is the year that PG-rated movies showed their undeniable appeal for all age groups and demographics,” he says. “It’s the pizza of ratings, and everybody loves it.” Adds Paramount worldwide president of distribution and marketing Marc Weinstock, “this shows there will l always be an audience for family movies. Look at this holiday. You have four PG movies at the top of the chart.”
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To be honest, the shift wasn’t intentional. Studios had to delay many of their marquee PG-13 franchise installments to 2025 and 2026 because of the historic labor strikes and lingering impact of COVID-19. (Mission: Impossible, Jurassic World and Avatar follow-ups are just three examples.) And some of Hollywood’s most revered filmmakers — among them Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner — couldn’t even secure proper support for their latest films, which weren’t exactly embraced by critics (in the cases of Coppola and Costner, at least).
It certainly didn’t hurt that Disney’s sprawling film empire, with its formidable family friendly roots, was back in fine form after losing the 2023 market share crown to Universal following nearly a decade of domination. The studio’s titles amassed $5.56 billion in global ticket sales, marking the first time that a major has crossed the $5 billion mark since the pandemic. Venturing into R-rated territory for the first time paid off in spades as Disney and Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine — the third installment in Ryan Reynold’s doozy-of-a comic-book-franchise became the top-grossing R-rated film of all time — while Pixar and Disney’s Inside Out 2 led the PG boom, becoming not only the year’s biggest global earner with nearly $1.7 billion in ticket sales but also the top-grossing animated film of all time (not adjusted for inflation). And Walt Disney Animation’s Moana 2 is all but assured of joining Inside Out 2 and Deadpool 3 as the only other 2024 title to join the billion-dollar box office club.
By all accounts, 2024 also was the year when the bounty of buying 20th Century paid off for Disney, with Alien: Romulus, the latest Planet of the Apes installment and Searchlight’s Oscar contender A Complete Unknown making plenty of noise on the big screen. “We are proud of the slate we delivered this year — a high-quality collection of films that offered something for everyone — and audiences really came out in force to enjoy a great time at the theater across the board,” says Disney co-chairman Alan Bergman, who leads the company’s film divisions.
Donna Langley, who has overseen Universal Pictures and specialty label Focus Features for years, is also fast rising up the leadership ranks and as of November, has greenlight authority across all NBCUniversal content. She likewise deserves ample credit for the PG boom in 2024, considering that the film adaptation of Wicked has grossed north of $424 million to date domestically and $651 million globally to rank as the top-grossing Broadway stage adaptation of all time. She also heads up the animation houses Illumination and DreamWorks Animation, which between them turned out Despicable Me 4, Kung Fu Panda 4 and The Wild Robot, which represent three of the year’s top five animated films. “Special mention must go to PG-rated animated films that represent a huge number of admissions given the lower-cost child’s ticket,” says Dergarabedian. Adds Universal domestic distribution president Jim Orr, “2024 was certainly a challenging year at the domestic box office but ultimately an extremely rewarding one.”
Meanwhile, The Wild Robot was among a number of 2024 films that held on theatrically despite going to the home relatively quickly via premium video-on-demand, proving that shrinking windows can potentially benefit all parties. Universal was a leader in collapsing windows at the onset of COVID. Sources at several studios say a film going to PVOD for purchase or rental can sustain better theatrically as a result of third-party advertising, such as Amazon Prime or Apple TV+. The Wild Robot was available on PVOD only 18 days after it was released in cinemas, yet it continued to play on more than 2,000 screens for weeks to come. Sources say Universal saw similar results for box office win Twisters and The Fall Guy. Among numerous other examples, Paramount’s Gladiator II also saw a bump the box office when it went to PVOD over the year-end holidays.
Dergarabedian notes that the year-over-year deficit in domestic box office revenue rested at an alarming 27.5 percent before Inside Out 2 opened in mid-June and a month out from Deadpool. He says the rebound that began in summer and picked up again in earnest at Thanksgiving when Wicked and Gladiator II opened, followed over the Christmas corridor with Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, was nothing short of remarkable. “The final six weeks of 2024 delivered one of the most eclectic and irresistible slates of films ever presented in this all-important corridor, with films for every taste and every age generating a huge amount of box office heat that is taking the year out on a high note,” he says, noting such additional holiday titles as Focus Features’ edgy R-rated vampire pic Nosferatu, A Complete Unknown and Nicole Kidman’s awards contender Babygirl.
If estimates are correct, 2024 domestic revenue clocked in at roughly $8.75 billion, down 3.3 percent from last year’s $9.04 billion. And it’s a good bet that 2025 could cross that $9 billion mark once again, but that is still notably behind pre-pandemic levels of $11 billion.
Revenue Snapshot: It Could Have Been MUCH Worse
While domestic revenue made a huge recovery, overseas was a different story, where the decline was far worse. China was a major culprit, where revenue was down in the double digits. Compounding the problem is the fact that Hollywood films are no longer in favor in the Middle Kingdom where audiences would prefer to see homegrown fare. And Russia remains off limits to major Hollywood studios out of allegiance to the Ukraine.
Studios Marketshare Scorecard
Disney’s film studios, run by Bergman, reclaimed its No. 1 standing in market share, led by a slew of films that shattered record after record, including Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. They were the only two films of the year to cross $1 billion globally. That’s not to say Disney was the only box office hero. Universal enjoyed another wickedly good year as Langley gained more power in the larger NBCU empire. And while Warner Bros. suffered a major stumble with Todd Phillips’ Joker sequel, it came in No. 2 overseas in market share. Warners, along with deserve credit for propping up the first part of the year with Dune: Part II and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
Specialty Box Office Scorecard
Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs blew past expectations when it opened in July to $22.6 million domestically, the best debut of 2024 for an original horror film amid Neon’s best start ever (that’s saying a lot, considering Tom Quinn’s outfit is home to Oscar winners including Parasite). The R-rated pic became the top-grossing indie movie of the calendar year with $74.6 million in domestic ticket sales and $126.9 million globally. It also reflects the unnerving truth that indie distributors can’t rely on art house and awards fare alone; elevated genre fare like Longlegs or A24’s Civil War can pay for a company to keep the lights on. Focus Features’ vampire pic Nosferatu is yet another example (it debuted to a better-than-expected $40 million). This isn’t necessarily a new trend, but it has become a more important weapon in the war against streamers. Obviously, awards season is as important as ever to specialty companies. Searchlight did great with Poor Things last year and hopes to do just as well this year with Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, which opened to promising numbers over the holidays. And Neon’s Oscar hopeful Anora has earned $14 million in the U.S. to date.
Animation Makes History With a Capital ‘A’
Many worried that families would never return to the multiplex after COVID-19 and the rise of streaming. Fret no more. There hadn’t been a time in modern box office history when animated films made up three of the top-five grossing titles of the year — until 2024 — or contributed so much of the overall. Usually, big live-action tentpoles dominate.
This story first appeared in the Jan. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
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