$100 million box office openers disappearing this year

No one could blame the box office for needing an imaginary friend right now. For the first time in more than a decade – excluding the worst period of the COVID-19 crisis – no film releases in the first six months of the year came close to the 100 million mark dollars during its national launch.

In 2023, for example, three films had accomplished this feat by the time of Memorial Day, including The Super Mario Bros. movie., which debuted to $146.3 million in April, on track to earn $1.36 billion worldwide. To date, the biggest opening of the year belongs to the March Mast Dune: part twowhich started with $82.5 million, followed by $80 million for Godzilla x Kong: The New Kingdom. In fact, we're approaching the one-year anniversary of the last film to be released with $100 million or more… barbie, which smiled sunny and debuted to $162 million in the second half of July. It ultimately became the highest-grossing film of the year, grossing $1.45 billion.

With the summer 2024 box office now almost a month old, the disappearance of a $100 million opening is particularly problematic, because going to the movies begets going to the movies. There is no season more crucial than the months when younger children, teenagers and students get out of school.

This year's peak season began with a groan of pain when Universal's The guy who falls just in time opened at the lower end of the scale of expectations despite being headlined by two of the stars who were part of the Barbenheimer phenomenon, barbieRyan Gosling, who has received widespread attention in his career and was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Ken – and OppenheimerThis is Emily Blunt, also nominated for an Oscar. No one expected the action comedy to hit $100 million when it launched, but $27.7 million? It has currently grossed $65.8 million on a net budget of $130 million.

The film's disappointing results prompted Universal to make the title available for home rental via premium video on demand for $19.99 on May 21, just three weekends after its theatrical launch. Scapegoat will still be shown in cinemas, but this decision highlights the film's failure to make a significant theatrical impact. The first PVODs were a boon for Universal. The studio insists that it is not cannibalizing cinema and that the film released on PVOD can actually improve box office receipts. Still, original plans called for a longer window, according to an exhibition source, but Universal changed course. The studio was a pioneer in the field of PVOD, which has become a boon for all studios, although many wait at least 31 to 32 days, as does Universal if a film opens to $50 million or more.

Then came John Krasinki's IFParamount's original live-action/CGI Imaginary Friends family picture starring Ryan Reynolds opposite a voice cast that includes just about every big name in town. IFwhich was expected to take home at least $40 million, debuted with $33.7 million.

For years, Marvel Studios has sparked summer by opening a superhero picture the first weekend in May. (Last year, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 started May with a gross of $118 million.) But this year's schedule has been drastically rearranged between production and post-production delays due to labor strikes and even the pandemic. At one point, Marvel Captain America: Brave New World The opening was scheduled for the first weekend in May. Other big films coming out of summer 2024 include the upcoming Impossible mission And Spider Worms payments.

“Hollywood is on its last legs right now. The strike took its toll,” says Wall Street analyst Eric Handler of MKM Partners. “For the first time in years, we started the summer with an unproven, character-driven film,” he adds, referring to The guy who falls just in time. “I'm not worried because there are big films coming, but it puts pressure on the rest of the summer and the year.”

A big guessing game in Hollywood right now is which of the big three summer franchise installments might be able to reverse the curse and launch with at least $100 million – Pixar's Inside Out 2 (June 14), Universal and Illumination's Despicable Me 4 (July 3) or Marvel's Deadpool and Wolverine (July 26). However, new data has changed the narrative regarding Inside Out 2. Pixar's sequel was released on May 23, and major services show the film starting with a budget between $75 million and $85 million (one service offers a range of $77 million to $93 million). Disney is going with more than $80 million, which would make it one of the biggest openings of the year and potentially the biggest if it flops. Dune: part two. The first one Upside down opened to $90.4 million and, despite the tracking, some believe the sequel still has a chance of reaching the century mark. Otherwise, the $100 million problem persists.

Memorial Day weekend has two solid headlines: The Garfield Movie and that of George Miller Angry – but neither is expected to approach $100 million (think more $30-$50 million).

May was brutal in terms of cinema. For the May 1-19 corridor, domestic box office revenues are down nearly 20% from last year and 50% from 2019. Year-to-date revenues are fluctuating also about 20% compared to 2023. “We knew it was going to be bad. , but not so bad,” says a senior studio executive who estimates, after the strike, that summer box office losses exceed half a million dollars. “There were no alarm bells going off this year to warn people that the summer box office had started.”

Paul Dergarabedian, chief box office analyst at Comscore, has another theory: Over the years, the industry has cornered itself with a fixation on the $100 million opening weekend. , both as a key benchmark for success and as a revenue-based marketing hook that, if not achieved, puts big films on their heels and deems them financial failures, often unfairly. Studios are now placed in the position of defending their marketing and distribution strategies which, unable to support their big-budget releases, are being scrutinized for failing to achieve this noble goal.