Things weren’t looking good at the start of the year. A depleted supply chain due to production delays caused by the strikes in Hollywood didn’t bode well for the coming months. Marvel Studios Leading Actors Captain America: Brave New World And blade and Paramount’s eighth Mission: Impossible The installments were postponed from the summer dates to 2025, while Deadpool and Wolverine was postponed from May 3rd to the end of July. Universal’s A Colt for all occasions has finally secured that early slot that Marvel has secured over the years.
Fast forward to the final weeks of summer and a steady string of hits – powered by Inside Out 2, Deadpool and Wolverine, Despicable Me 4, Twisters, Bad Boys: Ride Or Die And It ends with us – have changed the narrative. The season brought animated bliss courtesy of Joy and Gru, R-rated buddy movie banter from Marvel Studios and Sony, horrors from studios and independents, romantic dramas – and special edition popcorn buckets dedicated to products like Deadpool and Wolverine.
Hits and misses
There were misfires. Kevin Costner’s June release Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 grossed $29 million, prompting Warner Bros and New Line to postpone the release of Chapter 2 until further notice (the film will premiere at the Venice Film Festival), while Warner Bros. Catch by M Night Shyamalan brought in only 30 million dollars in the first half of August and Lionsgate’s Borderland earned $10 million in the same month.
But the fears of the spring, when doubts arose that there weren’t enough new movies that people wanted to see, are no longer as great among executives. March was solid with the $281.9 million success of Warner Bros/Legendary’s Dune – Part Twowhich opened on March 3 with an outstanding $82.5 million, and the Godzilla x Kong: The New Empirewith an opening result of $80 million at the end of the month and a target of $196.4 million.
April and May were bleak, despite a solid total performance of $50 million since Luca Guadagnino’s strike-delayed April start challenger starring Zendaya. Box office this month was not comparable to the same period a year ago, when Universal/Illuminations The Super Mario Bros. Movie In April alone, it grossed $490.9 million, compared to $438 million from all films in April 2024.
A Colt for all occasionswith Barbie The film, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, opened with a whimper upon its May 3 release, with a $27.7 million opening weekend, 77% behind Marvel Studios’ $118.4 million opening. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 a year earlier. A week later Planet of the Apes: Kingdom of the Planet opened with a whopping $58.4 million, becoming the highest-grossing film of May, earning $133.6 million of its $171.1 million gross for the month. Furiosa: A Mad Max SagaAlthough admired at Cannes, it failed to resonate with paying audiences, debuting on Memorial Day weekend with $32.3 million in four days, 73% less than the $118.8 million it earned The Little Mermaid a year earlier, and posted the lowest opening weekend at number one on that holiday in 29 years.
At the end of May, the year’s box office was down 23.3% from the previous year. Then came the heavyweights. “Summer started in June,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “After a weak April and May, different films started to play.” Crucially, audiences in the theater watched trailers that made them want to see more. “Momentum, rhythm and frequency are key,” he notes.
Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride Or Die opened on June 7 with $56.5 million. It was the first major release for Will Smith since he slapped Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, and audiences seemed to have put the incident behind them. The fourth installment in Sony’s 29-year-old action comedy franchise reached $193.3 million, pushing the series past the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. In mid-June, Paramount’s family film IF John Krasinski’s The Incredible Hulk, a $33.7 million opening film in May, crossed the $100 million mark.
Next came Pixar’s Inside Out 2. It was something like a litmus test: had Elementary did enough the year before to show audiences that Pixar blockbusters deserved exclusive theatrical releases instead of going straight to Disney+ like they had during the pandemic? Without a doubt. The sequel opened with $154.2 million and will close the summer as the number one film with $637.9 million currently. It is the highest-grossing animated film of all time and also the highest-grossing film in the world this year with $1.6 billion and counting.
Independent films have done well this summer. Magnolia Pictures has released the Sundance hit Thelma on June 21, starring June Squibb as a nonagenarian not to be messed with. The film has been playing in up to 1,290 theaters as the company expands into larger theaters, and has grossed $8.7 million, giving it a solid offseason. Osgood Perkins’ independent horror film Long-leggedstarring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage, marked the most successful opening weekend for “Neon” with $22.4 million on July 26, became the company’s biggest domestic hit with $72 million, and just surpassed the $100 million mark worldwide.
On the road to success
Paramount’s Horror A quiet place: day one opened on June 28 with a franchise-record $52.2 million and has already reached $138.7 million at the time of writing. Now summer has begun.
Universal/Lighting Despicable Me 4 kicked off July in style, opening with $75 million and later reaching $332 million. Just over two weeks later, on July 19, TwistersLee Isaac Chung’s homage to Jan de Bont’s 1986 disaster film Twistersshredded the competition with a sensational $81.3 million swell. The season was now firmly in “Barbenheimer” territory and year-over-year revenues for the July 19-21 weekend were down 52%, nowhere near as disastrous as box office observers had predicted. At the time of writing Twisterswith Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones, cost 225.9 million dollars.
The stage was set for the final tentpole of the month. Marvel Studios had not had a good 2023 by its high standards and there was still a lot at stake Deadpool and Wolverine. The excitement was heightened even further by the fact that it was the hit factory’s first R-rated release.
But the film wowed audiences, grossing an extraordinary $211 million – the highest opening weekend of the summer. It has crossed the $500 million mark, making it the second highest-grossing film of the year behind its Disney counterpart. Inside Out 2has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide and became the highest-grossing R-rated release at the North American, international, and global box offices.
Disney is the only studio with two consecutive billion-dollar global hits this year, recently becoming the first of the year to break the $3 billion mark. “We knew we had a strong program,” says Tony Chambers, EVP and head of theatrical distribution at The Walt Disney Studios. “Planet of the Apes: Kingdom of the Planet delivered the biggest film in May, Inside Out 2 delivered the biggest film in June, Deadpool and Wolverine was the most successful film in July, and it looks like we will also be Alien: Romulus (on August 16th).”
Fede Alvarez’s sci-fi horror film topped the box office charts over the August 16-18 weekend with an estimated $41.5 million. At the time of writing, Disney releases accounted for 42% of summer box office receipts.
Chambers stressed the importance of reaching as wide an audience as possible, noting: “Today, to achieve more than is expected, especially from a national perspective, you have to reach a multicultural audience.”
August already started with a strong leftover business from Deadpool and Wolverineand the stunning $50 million number one launch of Sony’s romance It ends with usstarring Ryan Reynolds’ wife Blake Lively. At the time of writing, year-over-year box office numbers had recovered from their 23.3% deficit at the end of May and were now at 15.9%. Industry insiders say the summer season could end with as much as $3.6 billion. Looking ahead, some are predicting annual revenues of between $8 billion and $8.5 billion, which is well below 2023’s $9.1 billion, but not catastrophic.
For Neon’s Chief Distribution Officer Elissa Federoff: Long-legged was just one element in a summer in which “everyone won – the big studios, the specialty companies, the audience” and offered moviegoers what they don’t always get. “If challenger came out, it appealed to an underserved Generation Z audience,” notes Federoff.Bad Boys: Ride Or Die was primarily supported by a black audience. Long-leggedI would argue was aimed at an underserved R-rated horror audience.
“Thelma was a great example of an exceptional arthouse film for an older audience that was an event film,” she continues.Twisters was a purely American popcorn movie. Deadpool and Wolverine aimed at an underserved (R-rated) Marvel audience. It ends with us was the event film for women.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the year and into 2025, executives say they are encouraged by the volume and range of films. “We’re in better shape in terms of product flow than we were 18 months ago, two years ago, when there was only one blockbuster every three months that could excite people,” says Walt Disney’s Chambers. “Now it’s one every three or four weeks.”
