The Live-Action Movies of the Year Thus Far and the Prospect of the Billion-Dollar Gross

Not long ago one might have thought that Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Fast X and The Little Mermaid were all contenders for the glory of a $1 billion gross at the worldwide box office--and where the upcoming releases of June are concerned, Elemental, The Flash and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny too.

I suspected, however, that none of these movies, or any other live-action movie of the year, might make that mark.

Right now Guardians of the Galaxy 3, already out for a solid month, has yet to make $800 million, and that without much further to go. (My guess is that it will end up somewhere in the vicinity of $825 million.)

Fast X, for the moment, does not seem likely to do better (with $900 million, at least, out of reach).

Meanwhile, if The Little Mermaid is doing decently domestically (on its way to $300-$350 million), its poor international performance makes any such gross elusive (with my guess a final worldwide take in the $600 million range).

At the same time the prospects for Elemental, The Flash and Indiana Jones have deteriorated.

My guess is that, based on what we now hear, Elemental is unlikely to cross the half-billion dollar mark; The Flash, as its domestic box office prospects especially sink, lucky indeed to make $700 million; and Indiana Jones, which I had thought more likely than not to fall short of the $1 billion mark in April, looking like it will do ever-less than that, with a Solo-like collapse safely within the range of the most recent Boxoffice Pro report.

The result is that, barring some great surprise, not a single live-action movie of the first six months of 2023 will break the billion-dollar mark--while the second half of the year seems no more promising. The only movie I think may have a shot of bucking the trend is Aquaman 2--but I am more doubtful about that one all the time.

Consequently this first really "normal" year for the movies after the pandemic looks rather underwhelming. One may wonder if this does not reflect a permanent hit to theatergoing habits, and the reality that people are still catching COVID and suffering the ill effects. However, it seems to me that the main issue is the uninspiring product on offer, as we are reminded when we look beyond the live-action films. People really wanted to see The Super Mario Bros. Movie apparently, and the result is that, even coming out well before summer, it blew past the $1 billion mark (and now has $1.3 billion in the till)--in the process becoming the fourth movie to do so in a year and a half (following Spider-Man: No Way Home, Top Gun 2 and Avatar 2). If the summer movie slate excited the public as much the moviegoers would have come. Instead it didn't--a reminder of how, in the case of most of these films, the studios have gone on trying to wring every last penny out of the same old franchises far past the point of diminishing returns, while, as the international situation decays, China's market becomes less accessible to Hollywood again.