The 2024 Box Office Is On Track To Break A Massive Hollywood Trend & It’s Really Disappointing

The 2024 box office is on track to break a recent Hollywood trend following the exceptional box office of 2023. As of early November, only two 2024 releases have broken the $1 billion global box office barrier, Inside Out 2 ($1.697 billion) and Deadpool & Wolverine ($1.337 billion), which is consistent with 2023’s global box office led by Barbie ($1.446 billion) and The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.362 billion). 2024’s Despicable Me 4 ($967.5 million) is essentially the Oppenheimer ($975.6 million) of this year’s boss office results with nearly identical numbers. However, there is more than meets the eye about the 2024 domestic box office following 2023’s roughly $9 billion revenue.

While 2023 has its fair share of box office bombs, the year as a whole featured an incredible slate of franchise blockbusters and sequels that helped to inflate its year-end revenue, which was up 30.5% compared to 2022. The U.S. domestic box office reached $9 billion in 2023 for the first time since 2019, which accrued $11.3 billion by comparison. The domestic box office has surpassed $10 billion every year since 2009, a streak that was broken by 2020’s disastrous $2.1 billion total. A slow recovery at the U.S. box office was to be expected due to the effects of the global pandemic, which has seen a substantial increase every year since 2020, until now.

2024 Is Likely To Be The First Time Since 2020 The Domestic Box Office Declined Year-To-Year

While not impossible, the odds are stacked against the 2024 domestic box office

With a current domestic box office revenue of $6,802,253,425, 2024 is projected to finish under 2023’s year-end total of $8,908,478,987. While there are several upcoming November and December releases that could outperform at the domestic box office such as Gladiator II, Wicked: Part One, and Moana 2, all of these films would essentially have to be among the very top performers of the year for 2024 to edge ahead of 2023’s roughly $9 billion total. Even though 2021 was better than 2020, 2022 was better than 2021, and 2023 was better than 2022, 2024 is currently over $2 billion behind 2023’s total. It’s unlikely it will make up that deficit over the last month and a half.

A potential path forward for 2024’s domestic box office to continue the upward momentum since 2020 would require Gladiator II to outperform its roughly $500 million global estimate. Wicked, which is currently expected to earn between $125-135 million in its opening weekend alone, would have to aim for north of $400 million domestically for the conversation to even begin. Other box office heavy hitters, Moana 2 and The Lion King: Mufasa, would have to pull in massive numbers and outperform the domestic totals of its predecessors, Moana ($248.7 million) and The Lion King ($543.6 million). It’s not completely impossible, but the odds are stacked against the 2024 domestic box office.

Why 2024’s Domestic Box Office Will Be Lower Than 2023’s

2023’s box office was saturated with franchise releases and big-budget sequels

2023 had several films outperform their initial estimates, particularly Oppenheimer and Barbie, which notably became a combined cultural phenomenon. In short, 2023 had a generally more stacked slate of franchise releases and sequels that were delayed due to the pandemic. Just some of the franchise sequels released in 2023 include Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Fast X, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, all of which pulled in more than $500 million globally. On the other hand, 2024’s domestic box office was mostly hurt by further delays and underperforming major titles.

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December 2023 Box Office Breakdown: 10 Biggest Stats, Records & Failures

The December 2023 box office saw a lot of individual success for several titles, although some specific movies have also been major flops.

Other notable 2023 franchise releases include Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, John Wick: Chapter 4, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Meg 2: The Trench, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, and Creed III. While several of the titles underperformed (Aquaman, Indiana Jones) and a few did better than projected (Meg 2, John Wick), the key takeaway is how saturated the 2023 box office was with franchise releases. 23 titles from 2023 made north of $300 million at the worldwide box office compared to 13 2024 releases, which should be closer to 17 or 18 by year’s end.

2025 Should More Than Make Up For 2024’s Underwhelming Box Office

Avatar 3 and Jurassic World Rebirth should be massive hits

All things considered, 2024 has performed fairly well given how many fewer franchise releases it had to offer. Even if its domestic total just barely passes $8 billion, it still shows relatively positive and healthy progression even if it doesn’t have the year-end total to support it. The 2025 slate ahead is massive with more franchise releases and other big-name properties, so it should theoretically surpass both 2024 and 2023 based on early projections. Avatar: Fire and Ash will surely aid in that effort, as well as blockbuster releases such as James Gunn’s upcoming Superman film, Zootopia 2, Mission: Impossible 8, and Jurassic World Rebirth.

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