The Flash's Opening Weekend Box Office Gross: How Did it Do?

In its first three days in domestic release The Flash has taken in $55 million.

Considering this, remember that Boxoffice Pro's projection just this past week was that it would make $69 million--almost a quarter more than what it actually did make--and that the $69 million figure was way down from its initial projection of $115-$140 million a month ago, which was itself received as a significant disappointment in the wake of some very loud claquing on the film's behalf, given that more than that had been expected.

So basically the movie's gross was less than half of what was projected in a worst-case scenario a month ago that was considered a major letdown.

Consider also what this means. Simply to get up to the $300 million mark the movie would need the legs of a Top Gun 2--which are probably not to be had by any movie this summer given the season's sheer crowdedness. Even with decent legs it might not break $150 million.

The film pulled in a little more abroad, it seems, with the domestic/international gross at the end of the Friday-to-Sunday period expected to be along the lines of 46/54 percent going by Box Office Mojo's data. Still, where even restrained, pre-claquing expectations had projected some $700 million for the film at the global box office (a figure I thought plausible enough) the movie's making so much as $400 million looks a long way off.

The result is that what was touted as the "greatest superhero film ever made" makes Ant-Man 3 look like a hit by comparison. (That one made almost $215 million domestic, and $476 million global.)

All this being the case I would say that I expect The Flash to be prominent in Deadline's list of the year's biggest "box office bombs"--but, alas, know it will have a lot of competition. There is Indiana Jones 5, which seems to be on track to be another Solo--or worse. And, later this year, there is the bad buzz-plagued conclusion to this phase in the DCEU's existence, Aquaman 2 which seems unlikely to benefit from the preceding DCEU film failing so badly. Indeed, this is shaping up to be one exceptional year for megaflops--so much so that by year's end we may, with this coming on top of Hollywood's other troubles, see its commitment to its current way of doing things more sorely tested than at any time since the New Hollywood era.

Indiana Jones 5: Points of Comparison (Top Gun 2, The Last Jedi, Solo, No Time to Die, Wild Wild West, Cowboys & Aliens)

When those who make predictions about how big franchise movies will do at the box office go by more than their "gut" they certainly think in terms of how past films in the franchise did. However, they also draw analogies with films outside their franchises that had critical similarities of other kinds.

The analogy that the claqueurs have preferred to make for Indiana Jones 5 has been Top Gun 2.

I have been skeptical about that analogy from the start--for many reasons. (Top Gun 2, whatever its virtues or assets as a blockbuster, had the benefit of the media cheer-leading for it with one voice, and a summer with very little competition from other big action movies--and this made a difference to its opening, and its extraordinary legs.) But considering Indiana Jones 5 I have found myself thinking of other movies. Notable among these have been:

* The Last Jedi, an installment in the other principal Lucasfilm franchise that likewise, under the direction of a much-admired but unlikely helmer, "subverted expectations" and destroyed the image of its iconic hero by presenting him aged and seemingly broken, with the task of saving the day falling to a younger woman who had looked to him for help (in a situation whose identity politics far from escaped notice).

* Solo, the next movie produced by the aforementioned franchise, which saw a Harrison Ford character in a very different phase of life (and looking different from) when we last saw him teamed up with another character played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It was also released on a key summer holiday weekend (Memorial rather than Independence Day in this case).

* No Time to Die, the last movie from the franchise that, even beyond being "the granddaddy of them all" when it comes to our high concept action-adventure franchise films, did so much to inspire both of the big Lucasfilm franchises specifically (with, indeed, Indiana Steven Spielberg's way of satisfying his unfulfilled impulse to make a Bond film). It also involved Phoebe Waller-Bridge (writing, not acting) as it presented its own hero at the "end of the road."

I now add to these three previously discussed points of comparison a fourth and fifth--Wild Wild West and Cowboys & Aliens, as both of these movies, the latter of which also starred Harrison Ford (and No Time to Die's Daniel Craig too!), were highly publicized mega-budgeted retro sci-fi July releases (with Wild Wild West, like Indiana Jones 5, hitting theaters on Independence Day weekend).

As it happened, the response to all of these movies was . . . not what was hoped for.

* The Last Jedi was deeply divisive, to the point of being a major moment in the country's culture wars over pop culture, with the fact associated with what, compared to the preceding Episode VII, was a significant commercial underperformance.

* Solo, which seemed to many a victim of the backlash that followed in the wake of The Last Jedi, proved a costly flop of historic proportions that caused Disney to cancel its plans for the franchise (which have yet to be properly replaced).

* No Time To Die was an underperformer at the box office (in the U.S., the weakest since Licence to Kill), which confirmed that the series was indeed catering to an aging fan base unreplenished by younger cohorts (with, indeed, the severity of the blow reflected in the slowness with which any plans for the continuation of the Bond franchise have proceeded, at least so far as is publicly known).

And of course, Wild Wild West and Cowboys & Aliens that confirmed the unsalability of "weird Westerns," steampunk and retro-sci-fi generally to the wider audience expected to come out for big summer films.

Given what is known of the films' content, and now expected of it commercially, it seems reasonable to expect Indiana Jones 5 to follow the same track as all these films in the weeks ahead with respect to both commercial performance and popular reception--though supporters of the movie may hope that history will prove kinder to it than the critics and audience of the summer of 2023.

The Box Office Prospects of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Worse Than Solo?

Boxoffice Pro has again downgraded its projection for the opening weekend gross of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Already reduced from $81-$111 million two weeks ago to $76-$105 million last week, to their estimate of the range between the worst and best case scenarios now stands at $68-$102 million.

In other words, the best that can be hoped for now seems to be about $100 million (a tepid gross indeed for a onetime Star Wars-like king of the blockbusters, or indeed any would-be blockbuster honored with an Independence Day weekend release date)--while an opening of under $70 million is within the realm of possibility.

Boxoffice Pro has likewise downgraded its expectations for the film's gross over its longer run--the ceiling last week, already down from $380 million at $359 million last week, reduced by a rough tenth to $325 million.

Of course, the floor remains unchanged (still the $225 million it was last week)--but I notice Boxoffice Pro's adjustments of that part of the projection tend to lag the others, while the common pattern for blockbusters makes it easy to imagine lower figures. Front-loaded blockbusters often make something like 40 percent of their money on opening weekend (such that Guardians of the Galaxy 3's being on track to triple its opening weekend gross is accounted a case of "good legs").

Should the movie take in $68 million a 40 percent take would give it a mere $170 million at the North American box office. Should the movie suffer an Ant-Man 3-like collapse it will have taken in 50 percent of its money that opening weekend, which would work out to a bit under $140 million. The result is that given these numbers it is far from impossible that the movie will gross under $200 million, or even $150 million--even before we consider the possibility that the opening weekend numbers will continue in their southward direction for another two weeks. (Were we, to, for instance, assume that after the floor fell 16 percent these past two weeks--from $81 to $68 million--it falls by another 16 percent between now and opening day, we could be looking at an opening weekend in the vicinity of $57 million, in which case the film would need better-than-average legs just to get to the $150 million mark.)

Back in April, making my calculations on the basis of the performance of prior Indiana Jones films, with some allowance for the headwinds the movie faces, I felt myself "sticking my neck out" speaking of the possibility of a Solo-like collapse. Now a Solo-like collapse--which a gross of $250 million (what Solo made in inflation-adjusted terms) would constitute--actually seems a relatively favorable outcome for the movie as the signs all point to Indiana Jones 5 performing worse than Solo this summer.

The Flash: Reassessing the Box Office Predictions

Back in May Boxoffice Pro predicted an opening weekend for The Flash in the $115-$140 million range.

After all the hype about the movie's being the greatest superhero film ever people said "That's it? A measly $140 million is the best it can do?" (The figure, after all, would land it only the 35th place on the "All Time Biggest" list--and this even before we consider inflation.)

As if that were not bad enough afterwards the figure kept falling. And hard. Just last week Boxoffice Pro predicted an opening for The Flash in the $72-$105 million range--which meant that the "floor" anticipated for the film's debut back in May was higher than the new "ceiling" as its release approached.

Now the floor has fallen again as even the already much-lowered ceiling has receded out of sight. Boxoffice Pro's prediction for the film's opening weekend is not $105 million, or the circa $90 million that would have been the middle of last week's predicted range, or even the $72 million that looked like a "worst-case" scenario, but $69 million--not much better than half of what was thought possible less than four weeks ago.

It seems worth spelling out the (for the producers) disquieting implications. Specifically, even with fairly good legs the film, following such a debut, could easily fall short of the $200 million mark domestically that Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse each blew past in their first ten days--and strong legs are by no means guaranteed here, with something in the $170-$185 million or so range easier to foresee going by Boxoffice Pro's apparent "multipliers." (Indeed, should the response to the film look like Ant-Man 3's--or even that of the last DC superhero film, Shazam 2--$150 million might be beyond its reach.)

Consider, too, the global prospects for the film. DC's larger films have tended to make 50 to 70 percent of their money abroad, which would translate to $700 million looking as high as it will go, and a lower gross much more likely--especially when we remember that the high end of that range was mainly a product of Aquaman doing very, very well in China.* The Flash movie will have a China release, but there was never any guarantee that The Flash would go above and beyond the way Aquaman did (indeed, the nostalgia that is such a big selling point for the movie seems a much weaker draw there than Aquaman's lavish undersea world), while Hollywood movies are simply picking up less in that market these days. (Indeed, Ant-Man 3's box office numbers would not have been nearly so bad were it not for an especially severe shortfall at the Chinese box office.) Therefore 60 percent seems a more plausible high.

Should the movie make $200 million domestically and 60 percent of its money abroad it would end up with a half billion dollar take. Should it make more like $170 million domestically, and just match that abroad, it could end up south of $350 million global--about what the first Shazam movie made at pre-pandemic prices. The result is that, building in a decent (+/- $50 million) margin of error I am thinking of $300-$550 million as the plausible range for the film's performance. By contrast the $700-$850 million I was prepared to consider a month ago on the basis of prior DC films and the stronger numbers then provided would seem to require a good part of the public to decide the film really is "the greatest superhero film of all time" and make it a Top Gun 2-like phenomenon.

I don't think very many people are holding their breaths for that now.

* With $210 million in the till due to a tripling of the opening weekend's gross, and 70 percent made abroad, one gets $490 million internationally, for a global total of $700 million.

Elemental: What Might it Make Opening Weekend? (And Beyond?)

Just as was the case with The Flash, Boxoffice Pro's opening weekend prediction for Elemental was lower than many expected.

Just last week that prediction stood at $31-$41 million.

Today the prediction is near the low end of that range--$33 million.

Where the overall run is concerned the expectation the publication has for the film was still in the $98-$167 million range last week. One may guess from the $33 million figure that the movie would not make it to much above $100 million, implying a particularly weak performance domestically.

Where does that leave the movie in relation to the international market? As I noted when previously considering the issue, Pixar movies that have not done so well at home have done better abroad, sometimes significantly compensating for their domestic shortfall internationally, with Coco the signal example. This has been especially the case when the sci-fi/fantasy content of the concept was a little "much" for the average theatergoer, as may be the case with this movie. Still, all things considered I see no reason to change my earlier assessment of the likely range of Elemental's global gross as $250-$450 million--and between the latest numbers, and the reality of how Hollywood movies generally and Disney particularly have done in China, the movie's gross seems to me more likely to approach the bottom than the top of the range.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3's Sixth Weekend at the Box Office: A Note

In its sixth weekend in release Guardians of the Galaxy 3 took in another $7 million, bringing its total up to $335 million. As this suggests, late in its run its holds are a little better than expected (Memorial Day weekend giving it a bump, and this weekend seeing it decline just 34 percent from the preceding), with the result that the movie's final gross seems all but certain to exceed $340 million and likely to approach (or even slightly breach) $350 million, nearly three times its opening weekend gross.

Internationally the movie's gross is now up to an even stronger $470 million, if with the film fading faster (enough so that I think the final take will be in the $485-$500 million range).

The result is that where I had thought the film likely to finish up around $825 million I am now thinking more in terms of the $825-$850 million range. At least 10 percent or so better than my more optimistic pre-release guesses based on its predecessors, and the plummeting projections regarding the opening weekend (my calculations pointed again and again at the $700-$750 million range), it falls well short of proving the Marvel Cinematic Universe's naysayers wrong about its being a franchise in decline. (Even the $850 million would leave it the lowest-grossing movie in the franchise in real terms by quite some way, and confirm the trend of decline from sequel-to-sequel.) However, it does at least remind them that even with the trajectory downward the franchise's films still put in performances robust by almost any other measure.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's Second Weekend

This past weekend Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse took in a robust $55 million at the domestic office, bringing its total there up to $225 million. At present this makes a gross north of $300 million nearly certain, and $350 million quite plausible, with higher easily within the range of possibility. (The film, after all, is running about 5 percent ahead of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 at the same point in its trajectory--as against just 2 percent after opening weekend.)

The situation overseas is less certain. Over there the movie has taken in some $165 million to date, considerably less than the domestic total (58 percent of the global revenue of $390 million domestic so far), suggesting that the explosion of enthusiasm for the animated wing of the Spider-Man franchise has been more a North American than a worldwide phenomenon. Still, the film's international holds are better than at home (a 44 percent drop in gross this weekend from the last weekend, as against the 54 percent drop seen here)--perhaps indicating audience interest growing abroad, and stronger legs bringing up its share over time. All the same, it is a long way from the $88 million international gross of the opening weekend to matching the film's likely $350 million+ domestic gross, with the result that while I think Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse may still have a good shot at being the year's highest-grossing Marvel film and superhero film in general domestically, globally the movie looks like it will be #2 to Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts' Opening Weekend Box Office Performance--and What it May Mean for the Film

These days most of the surprises at the box office seem to be unpleasant, with a great many movies having disappointing debuts and overall grosses (Ant-Man 3, Shazam 2, etc.). However, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has actually had a bit of good news, with an opening gross beating out the highest expectations for it (over $60 million, as against the $45-$56 million Boxoffice Pro had predicted on the eve of release as the site itself notes, to say nothing of the $30-$40 million it predicted for the movie a month before).

And Spider-Man did still better overseas, so that the worldwide take was nearly three times that much--$171 million.

Still, while a positive development for the movie's course one should put the good news into perspective--starting with the fact that if it did better than expected, the expectations were very, very low for a $200 million summer movie, and even these better numbers do not exactly portend a spectacular performance.

Take as s starting point what I think would be the best outcome for the movie within the range of the plausible--namely that it has Guardians of the Galaxy 3-like legs that let it triple its domestic take, while it does not twice as much but four times its domestic business overseas (the way that other Transformers movies have done in the past, Transformers 5, for instance, taking 79 percent of its gross internationally). This would work out to a $180 million domestic gross--and a global gross in the $900 million range. This take, if not quite so good as the franchise enjoyed over the course of its first four films in real terms (all $1 billion+ hits) would be very respectable indeed, and perhaps even suffice to make the film one of the year's most profitable when all is said and done. (Certainly Marvel's movies achieved as much with higher budgets and lower box office grosses last year, when the revenues from home entertainment/streaming/TV were tabulated.)

But just how likely is this, really? The film does have some points in its favor--not least the fact that audiences seem to be liking what they are seeing (the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is 91 percent, versus 43 percent for Transformers: The Last Knight), which may mean good word of mouth bringing people who had initially expected to pass to the theater, and more repeat viewings. It may also be that the competition the film faces in the weeks ahead will be less tough than anticipated--certainly to go by what we are hearing about The Flash and Indiana Jones, and the fast fade of Fast X. Still, if the movie's debut is followed by good week-to-week holds in the numbers domestically I suspect this will be a case where the film opens stronger but fades faster abroad--with, as is so often the case, the gross in China consequential. Almost half of Transformers 5's international earnings came just from China ($229 million of its $475 million, 48 percent of that total, and 38 percent of the global total of $605 million), and China has been less reliable this way, as seen in Rise of the Beasts' debut there. Its opening weekend take in that country was $40 million--a mere one-third of what Transformers 5 grossed at the same point ($120 million) in current dollars. Betokening a much weaker Chinese gross the idea of the movie's global gross quintupling its American gross, let alone a very good American gross, automatically seems much less likely.

Still, it does seem to me that, in contrast with my expectations of a month ago, the film, while by no means guaranteed to do that well, has a rather better chance than I earlier thought of breaking the $450 million barrier I then thought the probable ceiling for its gross.

The Little Mermaid's Third Weekend in Release: A Few Thoughts on the Gross

In its third weekend in domestic release The Little Mermaid took in another $23 million--raising its domestic total to $229 million.

For those still drawing a comparison between the film and 2019's Aladdin this means that, where it was edging ahead last week, seventeen days on it is running about 2 percent behind.

Perhaps noise rather than signal (the fluctuations are slight enough that it could be edging ahead of Aladdin again this time next week), I still expect it to finish well north of $300 million at the least (with the vicinity of $350 million still plausible).

Not all that had been hoped for (the more in as $300 million is not what it was in 2019), it is still a respectable gross by most measures--and any North American underperformance slight next to the film's real problem, which has been in the international markets.

Still, the movie's international gross is now up to $185 million. And of interest is the film's (relatively belated) debut in Japan this past weekend, where it took in $5 million. This is, of course, not a spectacular gross, but it is worth noting that Japanese grosses tend to be less front-loaded than those elsewhere. (Thus did The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a big hit in that country, open with under $14 million on the way to a gross of nearly six times as much at present.) And Disney movies have been known to explode there, with Frozen an outstanding example. (Back in 2014 Frozen opened with a little under $10 million--on the way to a final take of $249 million, or well over $300 million in today's terms, which proportionally made it a far bigger hit in Japan than it was even in the U.S..)

A Frozen-like performance would force a rethinking of much that has been said of the film's prospects.

Do I actually foresee anything of the kind for this film? Alas, no. Still, even with a surprisingly healthy gross in Japan (for instance, if it approached the $62 million The Lion King collected, or even the $100 million+ taken in by Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin) the film still might not break $700 million. But in getting to the break-even point on this colossal investment (which streaming cannot do alone, that's why all those streaming projects are getting canceled right and left) every little bit helps.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Three Weeks to Go--and the Box Office Forecasts Keep Falling

Last week Boxoffice Pro's range for the opening weekend of Indiana Jones 5 was in the $81-$111 million range. This went along with an expectation of a final domestic box office gross of $225-$380 million.

This week Boxoffice Pro's prediction is an opening weekend in the $76-$105 million range--with a commensurately lowered long-range forecast of $211-$359 million.

Relatively speaking the drop is minor--some $5 million or so on the opening weekend, $15-$20 million over the longer run (or 5-7 percent of what may seem very large totals). But it is a movement in the wrong direction from the standpoint of the backers--and a sign of perhaps worse to come, when what was predicted was already bad enough.

As I put it last week, the $1 billion global gross was already a declining possibility (fading for it as they previously faded for those other Disney releases this summer, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and The Little Mermaid); $700 million a middle-of-the-range performance that would leave it the lowest-performing film in its series by a long way in real terms; and the possibility of Solo-like collapse, which was on my mind from the start of my thinking about this movie's chances back in April, an ever-rising prospect.

Does Disney have any plan whatsoever for salvaging the situation? As I have remarked previously, the Cannes premiere, the early reviews and spoiler leaks, have hurt the film's chances, while limiting Disney's options for publicity in the remaining weeks. But if the studio has a surprise in mind . . . well, there just isn't much time left for them to spring it on us.

We will just have to see what the next three weeks bring--though I doubt very many are holding their breath.

The Flash: One Week to Go Before it Hits Theaters--as its Box Office Gross Forecast Keeps on Falling

Not too long ago the hype for The Flash was extreme in what was truly a worthy performance on the part of an entertainment press in full claqueur mode.

One may have wondered, however, whether the public was actually responding to all of the claquing on the movie's behalf.

The early box office tracking suggested that they did not. Still, the $280-$375 million Boxoffice Pro predicted as the film's final gross back in the middle of May, while not earth-shattering, at least looked respectable by the standards of a DC Extended Universe (DCEU) "burning off its final episodes."

And things could get better. After all, the critics might get behind the film, and help push it back on the road to box office glory.

Alas, things didn't get better, the projection slipping pretty quickly in the following weeks, and, in contrast with what might have been expected from the breathless hype of earlier, the critics not coming to the movie's rescue. Getting their say in recent days the Rotten Tomatoes score for the film stands at 72 percent--not exactly an overwhelming vote of confidence from those folks paid to "rate movies from good to excellent," with "good" what the critics rate movies when they don't like them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the Boxoffice Pro forecast made one week before the film's release, with the range of the film's overall run now down to $176-$282 million, works out to the floor and ceiling for the film's run in North America alone having fallen by $100 million in a mere three weeks, over a quarter of the take discussed just three weeks ago that some already regarded as a disappointment.

Putting this into terms of other movies, the film's doing well would, far from making it the crowning glory of the DCEU and the Epoch of Superhero Films in which we live that the hype promised, have it doing just a little bit better than Ant-Man 2 (about $260 million in April 2023 dollars), while at the low end its backers would be left wishing it only did as well as Ant-Man 3 (its $214 million standing about a fifth higher than the floor now predicted for the movie).

Going by what is said about the film itself, rather than the tracking data, I expect that the movie will find a fan base--relatively hardcore superhero movie fans responsive to the "trippy" premise, the brisk and action-packed narrative, the nostalgic button-pushing. But the general audience will be less impressed, finding it to be rather than the greatest of superhero films, at best an interesting one, or just passable, or maybe annoying and wearying, as the case might be--the kind of situation that leaves a movie a commercial disappointment, even as it, perhaps, wins a cult following over time.

Die Hard, Rambo 5, Indiana Jones 5

Those looking for analogies between Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and other films have in recent months turned time and again to Top Gun 2, picturing this fellow '80s retread explode at the box office and dominate the summer season the Tom Cruise film did in 2022.

Yet if one is looking for an '80s analogy it may be that Top Gun 2 is a less appropriate point of comparison than other major '80s action films others generally choose not to bring up--most obviously Die Hard 5 (A Good Day to Die Hard) and Rambo 5 (Rambo: Last Blood).

Why them? Like Indiana Jones Rambo and Die Hard were among the glories of '80s-era Hollywood action film-making--with Rambo: First Blood, Part II, far and away the biggest of the distinctly "'80s" action movies (action and not action-comedy, bullet-riddled, and very R-rated), and a major cultural moment, with Die Hard perhaps the most celebrated of them--launching a decade-long frenzy of imitation that produced considerable successes in its own right (not least the Steven Seagal career-high film Under Siege, Speed, and Harrison Ford's own Air Force One).

Also like Rambo and Die Hard the third film in the franchise (1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) was followed by a long pause in which further continuations generally remained in "development hell," with the fourth film coming only in the late '00s period of '80s nostalgia, and specifically the dozen months or so between the summers of 2007 and 2008 (with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hitting theaters a year after Live Free or Die Hard, and mere months after Rambo). Like those others failing to generate enormous enthusiasm for further follow-up, the next movie came only years later.

In the cases of Die Hard and Rambo those films ended the franchise on the sourest of notes both commercially and critically. (I remember a critic joking that 2013's Die Hard 5 must have been assembled by a robot because no human would have put the thing in theaters--while watching 2019's Rambo 5 left Rambo's own creator David Morrell saying that he "felt degraded and dehumanized after I left the theater," and that he "was less a human being for having seen it.")

Negative as the reviews for Indiana Jones 5 have been I expect no reactions as harsh as those. (Certainly no critic I have read yet claimed to have deprived of their humanity by seeing the movie!) But the reviews have indeed been negative--enough so to give an impression of a franchise having fallen a long way from its glory days--and it is plausible indeed that in the end Indiana Jones 5 will do no more to keep its (far more expensive) franchise going than Die Hard 5 and Rambo 5 did their own.

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.

Aquaman 2, China and the Film's Chances of a $1 Billion Gross

Aquaman is, to date, the biggest money-maker the DCEU ever had--and its only current-dollar billion-dollar hit. However, the movie was only a "respectable" grosser at home by first-rank superhero movie standards (its $335 million rather less than what Wonder Woman made the year before). What really put it over the top was its especially strong overseas gross--accounting for some 71 percent of its worldwide income (also a franchise high).

The result is that, all other things being equal, one might hope for a strong performance on the part of the sequel, with even a significant drop in the real-terms gross from the original's ($1.15 billion when it came out in December 2018, more like $1.4 billion in 2023 dollars) allowing it to be the kind of $1 billion hit so elusive for Hollywood's live-action films these days.

Alas, all things are not equal, with one factor well worth remembering that China was especially important in making the movie such a success. (Without its $292 million gross there the movie would have ended its run with just $850 million.)

With China so important--accounting for a quarter of the worldwide box office gross--should Aquaman 2 suffer the way many more recent American releases have in China the film could already be expected to do significantly less well. (Should, for example, the film do only half the business in China that its predecessor did--which would be a lot better than, say, the Ant-Man sequel managed--that would in today's terms mean almost $200 million off the top.) Meanwhile the movie faces other, significant, headwinds:

* The five year wait since the last film--and the slight turnout of DCEU films in those five years, with all that meant for sustaining interest in, or even awareness of, the brand.

* The end of the DCEU as we know it, undermining any attempt to make Aquaman 2 "an event."

* Bad (frankly, very bad) buzz about the film itself.

It may also be that The Flash, if indeed poorly received after the breathless hype (as seems possible), may not be helpful to the next DCEU release.

The result is that, if Aquaman 2 is, apart from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (which has missed its chance), and Indiana Jones 5 (the prospects of which are fading), the most likely contender for a $1 billion gross of any live-action movie coming out this year, I can easily picture it too falling short of the mark.

China's Importance for a $1 Billion Gross: The Case of 2019

In 2019 nine Hollywood movies' grosses broke the $1 billion barrier in worldwide release.

Three of those movies--Spider-Man: Far From Home, Captain Marvel, Aladdin--would not have crossed the $1 billion mark without Chinese revenue. Meanwhile others that would have saw their bottom lines a good deal healthier as a result of a China release--with Avengers: Endgame, if breaking the $2 billion barrier without China, still adding another $600 million to its worldwide gross because it came out there, as The Lion King and Frozen II each added a welcome $100 million+ to their worldwide gross thanks to their China release. (Only for Star Wars Episode IX, Toy Story 4, and Joker was China unimportant.)

All this is something well worth remembering when we consider the lackluster grosses of Hollywood's films this year in light of China's increasing closure to American films (with, we are told, Chinese authorities undermining American releases by delaying approval so as to make timely physical distribution of the films, and satisfactory promotional campaigns, nearly unworkable).

The resulting, declining prospect of making money in China, barring some improvement in the market situation, is going to be yet another source of downward pressure on Hollywood's income--and, if such a thing is possible, another driver of change in how it does business.