Disney No. 1 With $1B, Admissions 275M

A cynicism prevails in the media over this summer’s box office coming in at $3.67 billion, about even with last year’s.

Sure, this summer was a glass half full, even for the major studios. But, let’s pin the blame for false expectations on Gower Street who audaciously predicted that the North American box office was headed for a record post-pandemic $4.2 billion (we even took the bait). That’s why there’s all these sour headlines. Why, how and where they forecasted that number off this summer’s slate to be +14% higher than last summer, go figure. Last summer was powered by a long-awaited Pixar sequel in Inside Out 2 and the Disney Marvel Cinematic Universe’s full-bodied embrace of a R-rated movie in Deadpool & Wolverine (which also benefitted from being the first superhero movie of the summer — in late). Granted, there was an excitement for a $4 billion-plus season after the $326.7M record Memorial Day frame spurred by Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning openings.

So, the summer box office isn’t down, it’s about even. That’s a very good thing considering that Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine combined grossed $1.28 billion stateside last summer, repping 35% of the entire season. The upside to this summer? The wealth was spread out. Rather than two films sucking up most of the air, and only nine films crossing $100M+, there were 11 movies that crossed the century mark this summer (Sinners grossed $131.8M of its $278.5M total in the season alone).

It’s not that theatrical is dead. Hell, king streamer Netflix even embraced it to stunt Kpop Demon Hunters to a $19M two-day opening. But there’s ennui out there that we haven’t returned to pre-Covid levels, when summer annually, going back to 2012, largely grossed $4 billion-plus.

There’s some upbeat stats to creep a smile.

Box office analytics corp EntTelligence reports that attendance shot up by 1 million to 275M for the May through Labor Day span from a year ago.

Screen Engine/Comscore’s PostTrak tells Deadline that this summer saw male moviegoers up +5% for general titles. The over-and-under 25 demo was consistent for such films, though men over 25 were up 4%. Family titles, the ever-dependable box office genre, saw general audiences jump by 5%, driven largely by guys over 25, and an overall growth in the 25+ demo of +6%.

While most of the studios saw some gains or were flat with last summer, Warner Bros hit the jackpot over the May-Labor Day period, up five-fold over summer 2024 with $980.4M in the No. 2 spot. Hands down, the biggest gain made by any motion picture studio this summer. That’s with a supply of originals like Apple’s F1 and New Line’s Zack Cregger title Weapons, the reboot of DC Studios’ Superman, and a horror sequel a generation was craving for in Final Destination: Bloodlines, the highest grossing title in the franchise ($138M domestic/$301M worldwide). Warners is doing so well this year, that even if Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another buckles at the B.O. against its $140M pricetag, the studio will still be in the black by year-end in its ROI, and that’s what counts the most. Warners is doing so great this year, they could afford to postpone a highly anticipated tentpole, Mortal Kombat II, to next May in the same mid-month slot where they had Bloodlines.

Disney with 20th Century Studios and Searchlight led the seasonal heat wave, in what is no surprise, with $1.02 billion, buoyed by Lilo & Stitch ($423.3M, the second highest grossing movie YTD), Fantastic Four- First Steps ($266.1M domestic) and the ho-hum Thunderbolts ($190.2M). But the Mouse House is down -32% from a year ago (blame Elio, plus Freakier Friday has become quite sluggish in falling short of the century mark) which saw $1.5 billion (again, $1.2 billion of that being Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2).

We can poke holes at superhero movies all we want, evident in Thunderbolts* lackluster start to summer with a $74.3M opening. However, DC Studios under Peter Safran and James Gunn did see a return of fortune for the comic book brand in Superman which stateside is the highest grossing one ever at $351.7M, but still second highest worldwide in franchise at $611.4M behind Man of Steel; this after the previous administration’s string of flops in Aquaman 2, The Flash, Blue Beetle, Shazam: Fury of the Gods. So, mission accomplished there in reviving DC.

In addition, Fantastic Four: First Steps at a half billion worldwide is the highest grossing ever for that franchise. So, shut up, when it comes to superhero-itis. The reality check is that there is an arguable box office ceiling to certain pieces of IP (Batman and Spider-Man will always gross more than Superman), not to mention, the more FOMO fever surrounding a title, the better, hence one of the reasons why Superman outgrossed Fantastic Four. Despite similar audience exits (A- CinemaScore, a 70%+ definite recommend percentile and 90%-plus Rotten Tomatoes audience score), it’s clear based on a vote from consumer wallets, Superman was the more urgent to see.

Some have also argued that that neither pulled in a heavy enough family quotient or under 17 quotient, the latter 8% for Superman and 10% for Fantastic Four.

Universal at $758M is about even with summer 2024 thanks to Jurassic World Rebirth ($338.2M) and How to Train Your Dragon ($262.8M). Again, better flat, then down.

Paramount with Tom Cruise’s franchise finale, Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning and the reboot of Naked Gun ($51.3M) stands at $279M, +12% from last summer. While the media would like to write the loss obituary on Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning, for the studio brass, the ~$350M production was never about first cycle profit gain, rather long-term franchise gain as the Mission: Impossible movies are enormous perennial cash cows in their library revenue generation. Final Reckoning at $197.4M domestic, $598M WW bests 2023’s Dead Reckoning ($172.6M/$571M) but still isn’t best in M:I show with 2018’s Fallout at $220.1M domestic, $824.1M worldwide. Naked Gun showed that there remains a ceiling with broad comedies in the streaming era, specifically titles which aren’t hybrid (hybridmeaning a movie like Deadpool & Wolverine which is half superhero, half ha-ha).

The industry yell is for original movies and more of ’em, and A24 delivered that with four titles: the Dakota-Johnson-Pedro Pascal-Chris Evans romcom Materialists, horror movie Bring Her Back, the comedy Friendship and Ari Aster’s social western political crazy action-comedy Eddington fueling an $87M summer, +160% from last year’s $33.5M.

Sony, despite all good intentions with franchise reboots in 28 Years Later, Karate Kid: Legends, I Know What You Did Last Summer and an original swing with Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, was down tremendously from last summer with $174.8M, -66%. That amount includes Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Classics titles. Only 28 Years Later did the best, and can even claim some profit, at $70.4M domestic, $150.4M. Even though more was expected from this Danny Boyle package buy, you can’t complain. In a year flooded with horror, a $30M opening is one for any studio exec to beat their chest over. Why so low, Sony? The strike delayed script development on their biggest franchises. Better days are ahead next year with Jumanji 3, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Cregger’s Resident Evil and the next chapter of Insidious.

Lionsgate, from misfires including John Wick spinoff Ballerina and The Weeknd and Jenna Ortega’s Hurry Up Tomorrow, grossed $66.5M, -8% from last summer’s $72.9M.

Will we ever go back to pre-Covid levels? Interestingly enough, the industry pulled off a $4 billion summer in 2023 boosted by Barbie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Guardians of the Galaxy and Oppenheimer, and that’s when the strikes were a stone in the shoe from mid-July on.

But still how do we fix this?

Sure, it’s the same old babble of better quality of films, more originals, longer windows, etc.

Some answers lie for the overall industry in a recently published NRG study about Gen Alpha (under 12) moviegoers. NRG polled 6,100 moviegoers online between May and June, ages 6 to 60. The study was rather optimistic that the younger generation, who doesn’t shell out for movies (their parents do), prefer watching movies in a theater more than home (59% preferring theater, 24% preferring home), the highest of any other generation, ahead of Gen Z, millennials, and GenX-ers. How do studios win over Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z moviegers? By giving them generational ownership and the opportunity to interact with their favorite IPs’ theatrical extension (that’s what made Barbie a hit in advance when the toy logo memes created a social media frenzy months in advance; not to mention younger moviegoers’ desire to dress-up for Wicked, Oppenheimer and Barbie movies).

The NRG study recommended that studios should build stories that invite participation and co-creation for Gen Alpha, as well as meeting the demo where they are, chiefly promoting to them in game spaces and on social, in addition to selling moviegoing as a shared generational ritual.

If this summer showed anything, it was the need to reboot more female-heavy nostalgic IP, read the successes of Lilo & Stitch (62% female) and How to Train Your Dragon (56% female). Despite Freakier Friday falling short, two out of three ain’t bad.

In addition, the NRG study found that Premium Large Format screens (65%), 3D or virtual screenings (58%), and screenings with special effects (54%) remain priorities for the under 12 demo. Again, for exhibitors, who recently caved in to Netflix’s short window of Kpop Demon Hunters, that’s not a feasible feat, many still remodeling with recliner plush seats.

Clearly the argument of windows went out the window with exhibition as a majority booked Kpop Demon Hunters. The gripe from studios is that it sends mixed signals to a consumer that they can watch movies at home and in theaters at the same time. Whose fault is this? The studios. They left summer bare with fewer wide releases at 45 versus 51 in 2024 (wide being defined as those titles opening north of 1,000 theaters in weekend one). Any motion picture studio that doesn’t want a Netflix short-window situation going forward should commit to more wide releases in the summer, particularly ones supported with a sizeable P&A spend. Paramount saw the opportunity for late summer next year and moved kiddie pic Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie to next August. Too many of the wide entries opening post pandemic are single digit starts at the B.O., titles that studios have cut P&A on in order to push into the lucrative home window where PVOD, SVOD and AVOD deals are still rich.

Some studios could have dated their releases better, arguably moving them outside summer to a drier time when the marketplace needed more titles. i.e. Karate Kid: Legends in the wake of Lilo & Stitch was too much family on top of family. M3GAN 2.0 going pre-Sinners might have worked better (its CinemaScore was slightly better than the original, B+ to B). Fantastic Four: First Steps may have found a better runway rather than two weeks after Superman. It’s not to suggest in any way there should be less product in summer, rather stronger, more distinguished, competitive fare (no studio can ever go without programming the final weekend of July with some sort of tentpole). In the wake of Marvel Studios’ proving that Labor Day weekend is a place for tentpoles with 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (holiday record 4-day opening of $94.6M), distribution strategists still haven’t received the memo that the Friday-Monday stretch is a potential goldmine; those execs still weighed down by their old ways in historical data comps.

Needless to say, if we’re going to evolve the box office, we gotta take better swings.

Said one top studio executive, “If summer taught us anything, it’s about what’s skippable.”