Hollywood Is Staring Down The Barrel Of A Brutal Box Office Summer

At some point I may stop sounding like a broken record, but for the moment, as a box office analyst covering the entertainment industry, it is hard not to hit the pessimism alarm. The summer season kicked off with an unfortunate whimper as Universal's very well-liked "The Fall Guy" opened to less than $30 million on opening weekend — well below projections. That is, without exaggeration, the worst start to summer in decades. Sad to say, it isn't going to get any better any time soon. And I don't just mean through 2024. This past weekend, and other recent industry trends, have shown us that Hollywood has no clear, easy path forward. This summer merely seems like it's going to be illustrative of the larger problem.

Let's start with "The Fall Guy." We're talking about a movie starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, coming off of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," respectively. Already well-liked stars, they were coming off of two of the three biggest movies of 2023. Even though it was technically based on a TV show, the new movie essentially played like an original action/comedy for most audience members who were unfamiliar with the source material. It earned very positive reviews and even an A- CinemaScore. Yet, here we are with Universal facing a steep uphill battle to prevent the film from becoming a flop.

We're also talking about a weekend when the 25th anniversary re-release of "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" took the number two spot on the charts with less than $9 million. That's good for Lucasfilm (and "Star Wars" prequel defenders), but bad for the industry at large. Theater chains such as AMC already had a miserable time navigating the pandemic, and just as things seemed like they were going to start getting better, 2024 came around to remind us how fickle the whole theatrical industry is right now.

It's not like it's news that 2024 has been off to a rough start. We knew because of the SAG and WGA strikes last year that the release calendar was going to be heavily impacted. Ticket sales are down more than 20% compared to 2023 thus far, when the domestic box office topped $9 billion for the year. That number was encouraging, but even that was far below pre-pandemic levels when the annual total was regularly $10 billion or more. The industry can ill-afford another turn in the wrong direction. Yet, here we are, with the summer off to a bad start and little hope on the horizon.

This upcoming weekend sees the release of "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes." It's a movie that should do well enough, with tracking suggesting an opening weekend in the $55 to $60 million range. But that's not enough to make up for a lack of a Marvel movie clearing well over $100 million to kick off the summer, which is what we've become accustomed to. In fact, we don't have a movie on the calendar that looks like it can clear $100 million out of the gate until "Despicable Me 4" arrives in the first weekend of July. From there, the industry has its hopes pinned on "Deadpool & Wolverine," especially since Sony recently delayed "Kraven the Hunter" to December.

That's not what we're used to summer release schedules looking like. Now, theaters are hoping against hope that "The Garfield Movie" can play like "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" did last year. That's unlikely. We're left to hope that George Miller's "Furiosa" can make more than "Mad Max: Fury Road" did nearly a decade ago. That would be very nice. Even if those things happen, we're still a far cry from where we need to be to have a healthy, reliable theatrical marketplace. So, what's Hollywood to do? What are theater owners to do?

I, unfortunately, do not have any power to do much of anything from where I sit. I don't run a movie theater chain. I am not in the rooms where decisions get made at Hollywood studios. I'm also not full of enough hubris to believe I could fix all of these big, big problems with my silly little ideas. But they are big problems and they do need to be solved — and fast.

Hollywood has to figure out what works. Horror movies aren't breaking out this year like they were in 2022 and 2023. Superhero movies are unquestionably on the decline. Some of them might break through, but the industry can't rely on them to prop everything else up anymore. Unless your name is Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino, opening a big-budget, original film for adults seems nearly impossible. There are no crystal clear directions forward.

Maybe part of the answer is investing even more heavily in premium format experiences like Dolby Cinema or IMAX. Maybe it's taking on the Blumhouse model of paying less to talent upfront to get budgets down while everyone participates when a film succeeds. Either way, budgets need to come down. There is probably no magic bullet that will fix the whole of the problem. Someone needs to load the chamber with good ideas and unload that sucker, metaphorically speaking. For the moment, I am filled with a lack of optimism. I can only hope someone smarter than me knows something I don't know, or sees something I can't see. Here's to a better 2025, I guess? 

I spoke more about this on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

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