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Global box office sales are likely to tumble next year, and it’s not because consumers don’t love the movie theater experience. Chalk this one up to the Hollywood strikes.
Movie ticket sales are expected to reach $31.5B in 2024, 5% below the expected finish for 2023 (which includes Taylor Swift’s blockbuster The Eras Tour movie) and 20% below pre-pandemic figures, according to Gower Street Analytics.
It’s the first post-pandemic downturn in the group’s annual forecast and it’s thanks to the writer and actor strikes, whose impact has been “significant,” Rob Mitchell, director of theatrical insights at Gower Street said in a statement.
“Given that we lost 50% of production time in 2023, the anticipated 5% year-on-year decrease in 2023 is not indicative of a declining interest in cinema, but simply a direct consequence of limited product availability,” Gower Street Chief Executive Officer Dimitrios Mitsinikos added in the release. “In fact, as July 2023 marked a record-breaking month at the [global] box office, we know that there is a robust audience demand for compelling theatrical releases.”
A return to pre-pandemic revenue levels will be left up until at least 2025, if it not longer. In 2019, the global box office exceeded $42B. This year, it’s not expected to breach $34B.
Movies that have been postponed from 2024 include The Walt Disney Company’s (NYSE:DIS) Blade, Captain America: Brave New World, Snow White and Avatar; Paramount’s (NASDAQ:PARA) Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 2; Lionsgate’s (LGF.A) (NYSE:LGF.B) Dirty Dancing sequel; and Sony’s (OTCPK:SNEJF) (SONY) Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD) previously delayed Dune 2.
(Some of the aforementioned movies were recently listed among Fandango’s most anticipated films of 2024.)
“Based on productions currently on our radar, we expect 2025 to be a very good year at the global box office and hopefully a positive trend-setter for the second half of this decade,” Mitsinikos said.
For 2024, the North American market is anticipated to finish 11% down from 2023 at about $8B, a 30% drop against the 2017 to 2019 average.
The international market (excluding China) is anticipated to finish 7% down from 2023 at $15.6B, aided by local productions and down 21% from the 2017 to 2019 average.
China is showing a modest year-on-year gain for 2024 projection at $7.9, up 5% from this year, but it’s also the hardest market to predict.