By Dan Gallagher
If Barbenheimer taught the movie industry anything, it's that audiences are craving something fresh -- and yet still familiar.
Last year's dual box-office smash of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" proved a bright spot in a year battered by the impact of Hollywood's labor strikes and -- to a lesser extent -- a weakening of the superhero franchises that have been propping up the industry over the past decade. "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer, " along with "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," were the biggest movies of the year by global box office, grossing more than $3.7 billion combined. And while all three movies were based on well-known characters from toys, history and videogames, not one was based on an established film franchise.
However, finding super-well-known-but-untapped intellectual property is much easier said than done. So the industry is still relying on sequels, or known properties and characters from other media formats. Among the 20 or so movies still slated for release this year that are expected to gross more than $100 million domestically, 17 are sequels. And of those that remain, "Wicked" and "The Fall Guy" from Comcast's Universal Studios are based on established works from Broadway and television, while Sony's "Kraven the Hunter" is based on a previously untapped character from the Marvel universe.
Eleven of the sequels will come more than five years after the most recent films in their respective franchises. That includes Disney's "Deadpool & Wolverine," which is widely expected to be the biggest movie of the year and is currently the only one projected to top $300 million domestically, according to the Hollywood Stock Exchange, a virtual market where players bet on box-office outcomes. That would be in line with the performance of the previous two Deadpool movies, the latest of which came out six years ago.
Five of this year's major releases will be a decade or more after their previous franchise release. "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," from Warner Bros. Discovery, and "Twisters," from Universal, are sequels to movies first released in 1988 and 1996, respectively.
In an industry that was getting accustomed to seeing three Marvel releases a year, such pacing seems quite restrained. It has also shown some early signs of paying off. The three highest-grossing movies that have surpassed $100 million domestically so far this year are "Dune: Part Two," "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" and "Kung Fu Panda 4." The first two are sequels to movies released in 2021, while the most recent "Kung Fu Panda" dropped in 2016. And "Top Gun: Maverick" showed that one-off hits from the '80s can get serious new life; that movie went on to gross nearly $1.5 billion globally after its release in summer 2022.
Still, that hasn't been enough to fully lift the industry out of its postpandemic funk. The domestic box office has so far generated sales of $1.84 billion, which is about 17% below this time last year and nearly 40% below what the industry averaged during the first 15 weeks in the prepandemic years of 2015-2019, according to data from Box Office Mojo. And even after the excitement of the CinemaCon industry trade show last week, which featured unseen previews and full screenings of major releases in the pipeline, analysts still largely expect this year's box office to be down from last year -- and well below the industry's prepandemic level.
"I feel much more constructive about the back half of 2024 and 2025," Macquarie Research analyst Chad Beynon said after the conference. But he still expects domestic admission revenue to fall 7% this year.
"We are all looking at this with a skeptical eye," he added.
The one bright spot could turn out to be IMAX, as the industry's remaining moviegoers are showing a greater preference for premium experiences. Chief Executive Rich Gelfond told a Morgan Stanley conference last month that IMAX theaters accounted for 23% of the domestic box office for "Dune: Part Two" -- despite accounting for less than 1% of domestic screens. Wall Street currently projects IMAX revenue to grow slightly this year compared with drops of about 6% projected for national chains Cinemark and AMC Entertainment. Even familiar faces could use some help from much bigger screens.
Write to Dan Gallagher at dan.gallagher@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 16, 2024 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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