What Will the Fall Movie Season Bring?

Last year, in the wake of the weak audience response to many franchise films intended for blockbusterdom, and the thinning of this year's release slate by the delays compelled by a historic "double strike" in Hollywood, the expectations for 2024 were not very high--and so far the year has lived down to them. As of August 31 the North American cinematic box office has pulled in some $5.6 billion--as against the $6.6 billion it managed in the same eight months last year (a billion behind!), and what, in June 2024 dollars, is the $10 billion the box office averaged by that time of the year in pre-pandemic 2015-2019. Moreover, it seems significant that the situation would have been far worse if not for the overperformance of a couple of hits--Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine by themselves accounting for 22 percent of the entire year's take, testifying to the general weakness of the market.

Will the box office get a much-needed bump in the year's last four months? Well, as I write this the sequel to 1988's Beetlejuice is hitting theaters, while box office analysts regard the sequel to 2019's Joker as having fairly bright prospects--both expected to open well north of $100 million. After that there is Venom 3, and Gladiator 2, and Moana 2 and a Lion King prequel, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, among others. Those sick of sequels and prequels may be annoyed by this Hollywood-business-as-usual slate, and indeed it seems certain that some of them will prove the bad ideas some of them sound like, but all the same, I see no reason why at least some of these movies will not sell a good many tickets collectively, such that the rest of the year looks a lot more like July or even August did than May (yikes).

Still, my expectation is that this year will not refute my argument that the box office has seen a structural change--that the market has shrunk (North Americans on average going to the movies twice a year rather than 3+ as before), with franchise movies tougher sells (that they came out for more of the gimmicky, cult-y, genre-subverting postmodernism of Deadpool is a questionable basis for thinking the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been saved), with the terms of box office success altered, all as at a minimum North American ticket sales adding up to the $9 billion 2023 managed by New Year's Day seems a longshot. Indeed, this year Hollywood, running a billion dollars behind last year's box office at the same point in the year, would have to at least match the grosses of the last four months of 2023 just to hit the $8 billion mark envisaged for it last year, and considerably outdo it to reach $9 billion, all as one should remember that, as the past summer should remind all concerned, a few overperformers cannot be expected to all by themselves make up for a great mass of underperformers.