Check out the final numbers below: U.S. BOX OFFICE SUMMER REVENUE SUMMARY (1982-2021) Summer year-to-date through Labor Day weekend was $3,667M Down -10. Although that might sound counterintuitive, Hollywood studio executives and theater owners are not hitting the panic button.
 |
| 'Inside Out 2' is the summer's top earner and the biggest animated film of all time. Disney/Pixar |
Even just this time in May they were coming off two entirely different feelings during the official start of summer movie-going season. That represented a frightening 29 percent slide in revenue for the month vs. last year and reignited fears that between Hollywood's legendarily ruinous labor strikes, streaming competition and this pandemic striking an ultimate blow against the theatrical experience itself had clinched its prominence even timelier of extinction.
That was the weekend Marvel Studios and Disney were to open Deadpool & Wolverine but that threequel got pushed back to late July due in part by the strikes, making it (if you can believe this) only time during all of Hollywood's meteoric march toward summer matinees that a superhero pic from within or made under license by Marvel hasn't been lined up first weekend out.
That honor this year went to the Universal action-romancer The Fall Guy, which fell down on its face. Disney and 20th Century's Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes debuted about two weeks into May as expected, while Warner Bros. devastating Memorial Day b.o was all but fixed with Roland Emmerich Nazi sci-fi epic Unbelievable Dawn. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga — FLAT TIRE “Ride-or-Die” opened with $24 million for Sony in mid-June and “it really was a ‘reset’ movie that started everything coming back,” said Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian, noting the film made everyone forget about all of the box office disasters leading up to its release.
The turnaround kicked off with Pixar's record-smashing Inside Out 2, which ultimately re-established the company as not only a box office powerhouse but also the highest-grossing animated film in history (unadjusted) with more than $1.667 billion worldwide through Sept. 2 ($651M domestically). It is currently closing in on all=time number eight JURASSIC WORLD to join the top 10 list of highest grossing films worldwide!
And so the sluice gates of domestic Summer went forth and multiplied. Endings and Beginnings puts a cap on an ebb-and-flow year at the box office in North America, where dozens of films in all shapes and sizes overperformed or drastically underperformed (such as Paramount's A Quiet Place: Day One). July victory lap, including Illumination and Universal’s Despicable Me 4 ($335.6 million), Amblin and Universal’s Twisters($259.6 million) June –– August round-up balanced by Marvel DC Superhero Deadpool & Wolverine the unexpected sensation of summer '21 (plowing through all properties shrugging off Infinity Wars response with negligible drop-offs as it demolished reams' records shot to glory first title franchise into $1 billion+ territory global-wise even better boffo after proper DVD/Blu-ray sales metrics factored in). The Deadpool threequel is the latest to reach cinemas and over Labor Day weekend it crossed $600 million domestically, earning another milestone of a global haul at $1.262 billion by end of long holiday weekend.
“The bounce-back of theaters in the dog days of summer was nothing short a miracle and should serve as yet another reminder that just when you think it may be over for theatrical exhibition, our resilient industry once again breaks through any Chicken Little analysis predicting certain doom anytime there is slump at the box office,” noted Dergarabedian.
“The valleys have been more significant over the last several years, and we see consumer trends change-and-impact different types of films,” notes analyst Shawn Robbins at Box Office Theory. But the bottom line is that this back end of a blockbuster season was finally producing real ticket-buying force, anchored by several crowd-pleasing juggernauts. Additionally, “That momentum will carry on to fall as well with a more robust post-summer release schedule than we have seen since before the pandemic.
Sony continued its track record of female-driven fare in August with a ripple-outbreak awarded to Wayfarer Studios’ It Ends With Us and further expanded under the shadowy, overcast-performing malaise Anyone but You helped jumpstart last year — sparking a renaissance at Sony's more-demeanor studio-rom-com A-frame called life. Where the Crawdads Sing, The Woman King and Little Women all hail from Sony Local romancer It Ends With Us grossed $135.8 million to become the biggest non-franchise title of 2021 by far. The movie will jump the $300 million mark globally this weekend, signaling that any social media firestorm ignited by reports of a major falling out between star/producer Blake Lively and director/star Justin Baldoni hasn't befallen the title (Sony is backing Lively's cut of the film presently showing in theaters).
Adding to the late-summer surge was 20th Century Indie has helped drive the recovery as well, with Neon's Long Legs leading all titles (more on it later) and crossing $74M to become one of the biggest indie horror films in over a decade.
Disney On the studio side, Disney's film empire returned to form. The domestic B.O. takeaway from its summer movies came to $1.5 billion — giving the conglom a marketshare of about 42%. Paramount landed the next most pictures, 2 in summer domestic top 10 with Universal coming up after that.
Box Office Pro analyst Daniel Loria adds: “Throughout the rest of summer nearly every studio saw several overperformances by their summer hits at a time when both ratings and genres were in play.” Disney Dominates With 'Inside Out 2' — Disney/Deadpool & Wolverine/Alien: Romulus This included Despicable 4 and Twisters which well placed at Universal. That bill of health isn't a guarantee for IF to do the same with Emperor Of Darkness, but akin to A Quiet Place: Day One it's another spice lever by which you can extract big returns. Sony dominated the summer with hits such as Bad Boys: Return To Earth (just under $200 million domestic) and late summer breakout It Ends With US.
Warner Bros., too, kept flirting with the idea throughout my discussions. Loria says, ‘We warred about it at Warner Bros. While its 2024 slate was decidedly quieter than the Barbie summer of 2023, it Even so, the Max Mad movies have never been break-out hits at the box office yet Furiosa could have done better. “Horizon never really caught on theatrically, and genre transplants The Watchers and Trap (now led by the Shyamalan(s) introduced for thriller turns), both played okay without ever seeming like the sort of tentpoles that should be responsible to carry summer scheduling.”
Of course Warners has a massive rabbit in Beetlejuice, which is going for summer-like numbers next weekend. The follow-up is looking at a domestic opening north of $80 million, debuting to glowing notices and making headlines with its splashy world premiere in Venice.
By the same token, year-to-date revenue continues to trail last years pace by over 14 percent; so while we may not be in the desert headed for a promised land of box office prosperity, at least were all clear-blooded again and have reacquainted ourselves with coins. But the glut of summer over-performers is providing some optimism that more ground could be made up going into autumn and winter.
“Certainly the summer box office is ending on a higher note than it began,” Robbins says. This business works in highs and lows.
0 Comments