The numbers are in — domestic revenue for the 2024 summer box office hit an estimated $3.67 billion, down 10.4 percent over 2023, Comscore said Monday. As counterintuitive as it may seem, Hollywood studio executives and theater owners aren’t panicking.
They were experiencing far different emotions at the end of May, the official start of the summer box office. Revenue for the month was down a terrifying 29 percent over the prior year prompting renewed concern that the theatrical experience might not survive the lasting impact of the pandemic, Hollywood’s historic labor strikes and competition from streaming.
It was because of the strikes that Marvel Studios and Disney weren’t able to open Deadpool & Wolverine at the beginning of May — the threequel was delayed to late July — marking the first time in years that a Marvel superhero pic hasn’t kicked off summer. This year that job went to Universal’s action-romancer The Fall Guy, which didn’t fall short of expectations. Disney and 20th Century’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, opening mid-month, made a solid showing and successfully rebooted the franchise, but Memorial Day suffered a major blow when Warner Bros.’ Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga got a flat tire.
Sony’s June offering Bad Boys: Ride or Die set into motion a major reset and a two-month box office recovery that made the “sins of the past disappear quickly in the rear-view mirror,” says Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
The rebound began with the record-shattering performance of Inside Out 2, which put Pixar back on the map and became the top-grossing animated film of all time with more than $1.667 billion in global ticket sales as of Sept. 2, including $651 million domestically. And it will soon overtake Jurassic World to rank as the eighth top-grossing film of all time at the worldwide box office.
From there, the domestic summer box office was off to the races. A slew of films of all shapes and sizes overperformed in North America, including Paramount’s A Quiet Place: Day One ($139 million). July wins included Illumination and Universal’s Despicable Me 4 ($335.6 million), Amblin and Universal’s Twisters ($259.6 million) and Marvel and Disney’s superhero sensation Deadpool & Wolverine, which, like Inside Out 2, shattered numerous records and is the first title in the franchise to cross $1 billion globally. Over Labor Day weekend, the Deadpool threequel checked off another milestone in clearing the $600 million mark domestically to finish the long holiday weekend with a global haul of $1.262 billion.
“The reversal of fortune for theaters in the middle months of the summer season was astonishing and a lesson in how unpredictable and yet resilient this industry has always proven itself to be despite the negative Chicken Little prognostications that occur every time there is a box office downturn,” says Dergarabedian.
Adds analyst Shawn Robbins of Box Office Theory, “The valleys have been more pronounced in recent years and we continue to see shifting consumer habits impact certain types of films. Overall though the back half of this lucrative season, anchored by a variety of crowd-pleasing hits, started delivering the kind of consistent box office winners this industry has been yearning for. That trend is poised to continue through fall with a stronger post-summer release slate than we’ve seen since before the pandemic.”
August breakouts included Wayfarer Studios’ It Ends With Us, which furthered Sony’s commitment to providing female-driven fare. The pic has earned $135.8 million domestically and hasn’t been hampered by social media firestorm ignited by a reported rift between star-producer Blake Lively and director-star Justin Baldoni (Sony has sided with Lively, whose preferred cut of the film is the one showing in theaters).
Another late-summer boost was 20th Century/Disney’s’ Alien: Romulus, which has earned $90.6 million domestically (globally, its cume is an estimated $293.5 million, the second-best showing of the franchise, not adjusted for inflation.)
The indie side of the aisle has also played a major role in the recovery, led by Neon’s Longlegs, which has grossed north of $74 million and is the biggest indie horror film in a decade at the domestic box office.
In terms of studios, Disney’s film empire returned to its previous glory days. Its summer movies accounted for $1.5 billion of all domestic ticket sales, putting its marketshare at roughly 42 percent. Universal also fared well with three films in the top 10 summer domestic chart followed by Paramount with two.
“Nearly every studio saw several summer releases overperform box office expectations across different ratings and genres throughout the rest of the summer,” says analyst Daniel Loria of Box Office Pro. “Disney takes the headline with Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine and Alien: Romulus. Universal found success with Despicable Me 4 and Twisters. Paramount saw great returns from A Quiet Place: Day One and recovered from an iffy opening weekend for IF to see that title leg out to $100 million-plus. Sony book-ended the summer with hits like Bad Boys: Ride or Die which fell just short of $200 million domestically and the late summer hit It Ends with Us.”
Loria continues, “Warner Brothers had a significantly more low-key slate in 2024 than it did in the Barbie summer of 2023. Furiosa could’ve done better, even if the Max Max movie have never been box office behemoths. Horizon couldn’t find its audience theatrically, while genre replacements like the Shyamalan(s)-led thrillers The Watchers and Trap performed modestly without having the weight of being huge earners for the studio.”
Warners, however, has a huge trick up its sleeve: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice which is headed for a summer-like opening next weekend. The sequel is tracking for an $80 million-plus domestic opening after earning rave reviews and making a splashy world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
At the same time, the box office is hardly out of the woods with year-to-date revenue running more than 14 percent behind the same period last year. Yet the abundance of summer titles that did more business than expected is providing hope that more gains can be made this fall and winter.
“There’s no doubt the summer box office is going out on a higher note than it began,” says Robbins. “In this industry, there’s always an ebb and flow.”
