As Hollywood’s labor strikes dragged on into the late summer and fall of 2023, anxiety increased over their potential impact on the 2024 box office. Major studio releases were being pushed off the 2024 calendar due to production delays, including Marvel’s CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD, Pixar’s ELIO, Disney’s live-action remake of SNOW WHITE, Paramount’s Action sequel MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART TWO and Paramount’s A QUITE PLACE 3. The resulting hole in the 2024 domestic box office is estimated at $1.5 billion.
This week, the data experts at Gower Street Analytics published their projections for the upcoming 2024 box office, predicting a 5% year-over-year decline in the global box office and 11% decline in the domestic box office comparing 2024 to 2023. If correct, this would be the first yearly decline in the post-pandemic era.
Gower Street CEO Dimitrios Mitsinikos stressed that the reason for this drop is entirely attributable to the strikes, rather than a fundamental change in interest from moviegoers. The increase in titles released in 2025 will make it “a very good year at the global box office and hopefully a positive trend-setter for the second half of this decade.”
Doomsayers will inevitably use any decline in the 2024 box office as indicating a long-term decline in the sector itself. The demise of cinema has been predicted many times before, most recently during the lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic and the slow recovery in its aftermath. Using history as our guide, we expect that the trendline over the next several years will be generally stable, with positive momentum over time.