The American Box Office Returns to Normal?

Since the outbreak of the pandemic the box office has just not been the same, with the theaters shut during the period of lockdown, and then after reopening, seeing significantly lower attendance. The clearest indication of that disruption was the absence of the big hits that account so disproportionately for the theaters' income, with such releases being subject to long delays, and then when coming out (sometimes, while simultaneously made available to viewers at home at premium prices) taking in a lot less than they would have made in ordinary times. (Thus did No Time to Die put in the weakest showing for the James Bond series in American theaters since Licence to Kill flopped way back in 1989.)

However, after coming out last December Spider-Man made a record-crushing $800 million, while Batman in March pulled in just under $370 million, that first big movie of the summer season, the Dr. Strange sequel, has exceeded that performance, and Top Gun: Maverick scored $400 million in its first 18 days, with that movie's success followed up by a strong $140 million+ opening weekend for Jurassic World: Dominion.

Still, a glance back at past years dispels any illusion that all is well. Some quick calculations show that in the five years before the pandemic the box office averaged about $13.5 billion when the numbers are adjusted for inflation to equal current, early 2022, dollars.

However, almost halfway into the year, over one month into the critical summer season, the box office has scored just a little over $3 billion. This is a considerable improvement over what we saw in 2020 (when the take was a bit over $2 billion for the whole year) and 2021 (when it was under $5 billion for the annum), but still well under a quarter of the earnings for a normal year. What are we to make of that? I suppose one factor is that much of the public remains leerier of the theater than before on grounds of the never-ending pandemic. (The mainstream media, in line with its prejudices, gives an enormous platform to those outraged over anti-pandemic measures, and scoff at even those purely personal measures like vaccination and masks; but ignores or dismisses the part of the public that wanted a more vigorous public response, and in its absence feels itself sufficiently unsafe that it will make significant sacrifices to protect itself, with all that means for such little luxuries as taking in a movie now and then, such that we likely underestimate it.) Of course, Spider-Man was playing even as new cases of COVID surged toward the 800,000 per day we saw in January, but it seems relevant that the situation was not nearly so bad as that when the movie actually hit theaters, and began a run that was, per usual for Hollywood blockbusters, highly front-loaded (on December 17, 2021, the 7-day average was more like 125,000, not particularly bad by the standard of the prior months). And I dare say that had the infection rate in mid-December been as bad as it was to be a mere month later it would have put a significant dent in the figures.

More generally I would say that that element of caution, likely to spike when the pandemic gets particularly bad, along with the related problems of a diminished habit of going out generally as a result of recent experience; the shuttering of a good many theaters on what may prove a permanent basis and in many areas make a trip to the theater longer and less convenient; and the other troubles people have had since (like the inflation giving us $5 a gallon gas, and doubtless raising the always horrifying price of concession food to new highs), which may well be worsened if inflation combines with recession, as seems all too likely; will at the very least delay a complete recovery. Indeed, if the crunch really drags, with what it means for personal habits, and for the viability of theaters, it is far from implausible that movie going will not completely recover--that we will, for example, see Americans cut back their movie going to the levels long seen in places like Germany and Japan, Americans making one or two trips to the theater on average instead of four or five even in normal times--and in the process slashing ticket sales by two-thirds (turning that $13-$14 billion box office into a $4-5 billion box office, barring higher ticket prices, which would likely mean still fewer trips to the theater).

If that indeed proves to be the case I would suspect that, even more than is already the case, this will mean a raising of the bar in regard to what gets people into the theater--which, given the dynamics of Hollywood, will likely mean that much more emphasis on that handful of giant hits that can be sold as have-to-see-it-now-on-the-big-screen "events" as everything else gets kicked to the small screen.