Another post-pandemic summer is over and we have ourselves another reminder that Barbenheimer was a fluke with overall takings down again. With some early hits, such as Lilo & Stitch, some had expected this season’s blockbusters to take the industry to the magic $4bn mark (something only achieved once since 2019, thanks to Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy), but that was not to be.
Box office was around $3.53bn, a gentle rise from last year, which suffered from a rocky start and ended up at $3.52bn. But what was behind that number and which films should have helped push it even higher?
Millennial nostalgia is king
Summer has been overtaken by nostalgia for some time now, but this year was overtaken by a certain kind of nostalgia from a certain period of time. It was a season geared towards those who view the 2000s as a formative cultural period and the bets mostly paid off. In mid-May, the sixth instalment of the Final Destination franchise (which started in 2000 and saw sequels throughout the decade) overperformed, becoming the highest-grossing in the series. In June, Danny Boyle returned to the world of 2002’s 28 Days Later with the start of a new trilogy, racking up $150m worldwide, almost double that of the original. The summer’s biggest hit soon followed, a live-action remake of 2002’s Lilo & Stitch, the only film this season to crack $1bn. The original had been a hit on release but its popularity grew over time as teenagers turned into parents, creating a new generation of fans. Then in August, a follow-up to 2003’s Freaky Friday brought back Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis and flew past $115m worldwide (with more to come). One could even credit the $844m success of another rote Jurassic Park sequel to a generation’s undying love for the original …
It’s not going away anytime soon (a prequel series to Legally Blonde and sequels to Shrek and Scary Movie are in the works), but this summer also showed the limitations of nostalgia. A follow-up to late-90s slasher franchise I Know What You Did Last Summer did just about OK worldwide given its small budget ($64m from $18m), but it wasn’t the easy win that Sony had expected (it made half of the 1997 original without inflation and the number paled in comparison to the new Scream movies), and a mid-credits kicker suggesting more to come will probably be the last we’ll see. Sony also struggled with a return to the Karate Kid franchise, which made less than a third of the 2010 reboot. Unlike the aforementioned hits, both films required more knowledge of the ins and outs of franchises that hadn’t lived on in quite the same way (both had most recently been resurrected on TV).
Animated panic
The biggest family hits of the summer were live-action remakes of Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon (over $1.6bn combined), a relief for Disney (after struggling with Snow White) and a new source of income for Universal/DreamWorks. But the success also came with a bitter aftertaste as while they both hit big, animation in general suffered. Pixar might have scored last summer’s biggest hit with Inside Out 2 ($1.69bn worldwide), but post-Covid it’s been otherwise wobbly with even Toy Story spin-off Lightyear ($226m worldwide) failing to catch fire. This summer saw the company’s worst-ever opening weekend for Elio, a cursed production that saw a change of director and reportedly a panicked de-queering. The film ended up making just $152m on an estimated budget of up to $200m.
Back in 2011, Sony’s first Smurfs outing made an impressive $563m worldwide, the ninth-highest-grossing film of the year. While the 2013 sequel dipped below with $347m and the 2017 reboot even lower with $197m, these numbers were still far more impressive than what this summer’s latest attempt achieved, as the franchise moved from Sony to Paramount. The Rihanna-led Smurfs made just $31m in the US and $109m globally, a number one would perceive as franchise-ending. There was also a significant downturn for The Bad Guys franchise, with the second film currently running at $150m internationally compared with the first one’s $250m, a disappointment given an $80m budget. This past weekend, A24 also tried to give Chinese smash Ne Zha 2 the Hollywood treatment with a dubbed version, populated by stars such as Michelle Yeoh. But the film, which had already broken box office records with a staggering $2.2bn gross, had already made $20m stateside earlier in the year. Audiences roundly rejected the redo and the film tanked in 13th position with just $1.5m. The weekend was overshadowed by another animated success story …
KPop goes the box office
During the unsureness of the pandemic, Sony decided to offload some of its films to Netflix, a bundle that unwisely included a film called KPop: Demon Hunters. At that time, in early 2021, it was only in development and no one knew what it would later become. Even when it was released on Netflix in June, there was still little buzz surrounding it, something that often happens with the original films the streamer decides not to go big on (last year’s extraordinary thriller Rebel Ridge also found itself somewhat dumped). But fans found it fast and the film rose and rose until it became a smash, big enough to not only push a Ryan Reynolds action movie off the all-time most-watched list but also achieve a rare Netflix theatrical release. Last weekend, a singalong version was dropped into select cinemas (certain chains refuse to show Netflix films so they were excluded) and it made an estimated $20m in the US, topping the box office.
It’s a fascinating case study for the industry and a frustrating one for Sony, which has had a bumpy year so far. It’s obviously not certain what would have happened had the film been released by the studio theatrically given the market for original animation, and the film’s unprecedented success on Netflix is probably tied to how much easier something can catch fire on such an accessible platform that allows for endless rewatching. But its unusual journey has left some money on the table, whether that would have gone to Sony or Netflix. This summer also saw more streaming success for Apple as it achieved its biggest hit to date with F1: The Movie, which made $604m, also becoming Brad Pitt’s highest grosser. It was released in conjunction with Warner Bros and the tech giant has yet to unveil its release date on Apple TV+. The strategy – release a big movie wide and make people at home wait until they can watch it for nothing – edges Apple closer to an old-fashioned studio.
A secret weapon
For a long while, it seemed the only two reliable genres in Hollywood were superheroes and horror (even if a superhero horror failed to capitalise) and as the former started to see a downturn, the latter worryingly followed. Last year saw a string of stumbles including Abigail, The First Omen, Never Let Go, The Watchers, Afraid and The Front Room, and pre-summer this year, things hadn’t improved much with Opus, The Woman in the Yard, Wolf Man and Until Dawn all underperforming. But in April, just before the season kicked off, Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s one-of-a-kind hybrid of horror, fantasy, action and period drama, was a sustained smash, sticking inside the top 10 until mid-June (it’s become the highest-grossing original live-action film since Gravity). Weeks after, Final Destination: Bloodlines also became the franchise’s top earner by a considerable amount (it made $285m globally compared with the fourth chapter’s $186m) and alarm bells had stopped sounding.
What audiences wanted, as shown by the success of last summer’s Longlegs, was something that felt special, and the genre’s oversaturation had left so many horror films feeling stale and unnecessary. While Sinners, technically released in spring, will be arguably the year’s most encouraging success story, the summer’s big horror win came in August with the release of Weapons, Zach Cregger’s ambitious follow-up to sleeper hit Barbarian. Like Sinners and Final Destination 6, it was also a Warner Bros release (summer bonuses to the marketing department) and like those two films it also had a larger-than-usual budget for the genre. But since its release, it’s flown past $200m globally and reminded studios of the power of a well-marketed original thriller-horror at summer. Back in the M Night Shyamalan heyday, these would come every two years and while quality faded, audiences mostly didn’t (even The Happening made over $160m worldwide). It’s worth noting that horror was still no surefire thing this summer (Together, Bring Her Back, Dangerous Animals and I Know What You Did Last Summer all underperformed) but Cregger’s twisty conversation-starter, built around a secret you had to find out for yourself, felt essential to both teens and their parents and was the kind of buzzy, mid-budget, R-rated success that we don’t see much of these days. I imagine we’ll be seeing more of them soon.
Empty arthouses
The post-pandemic box office hasn’t been kind to the smaller movie, especially in the summertime. Pre-2020, films such as Hereditary, Sorry to Bother You and RBG found a way to distract audiences from sequels and superheroes, but indie breakouts have been harder to spot in the summers since. This year was another disappointing season for counter-programming with A24 out of luck with both Eva Victor’s Sundance breakout Sorry, Baby in specialty release ($2.3m US) and Ari Aster’s Covid western Eddington in wide release ($10.1m US). Neon also struggled to profit from Toronto film festival award winner The Life of Chuck ($6.7m US). Sony Pictures Classics couldn’t capitalise on the Austen celebrations with Jane Austen Wrecked My Life ($1.8m US) or The Bear’s Molly Gordon’s rising star with Oh, Hi! ($2m US). Vertical-released Ron Howard thriller Eden, blessed with a starry cast, couldn’t open past $1m on the same weekend, as Ethan Coen’s comedy Honey Don’t! struggled to make it to $4m. Even a starry Wes Anderson movie like The Phoenician Scheme couldn’t make it past $20m in the US (Asteroid City almost reached $30m).
What did work for A24 was Celine Song’s Materialists, one of their more successful commercial plays of late. The Dakota Johnson-led romantic comedy rose to $36m in the US and $85m worldwide, impressive given both the $18m budget and the genre’s recent performance at the box office (Anyone But You remains the rare success story). Like that film, it managed to spark online chatter, this time over its themes and character choices, but it remains to be seen if Johnson’s other romcom of the season can repeat its success (last weekend’s Splitsville is a slow rollout). Internationally the film was also handled by Sony, giving it a much-needed win …
And superheroes are back … but also maybe not?
After superhero matchup The Marvels saw out 2023 with a super-embarrassing result (making $206m globally from a budget of $374m, a record low for the MCU), Marvel wisely took a pause. Last year saw the release of Deadpool & Wolverine (a monster hit at $1.3bn) but those films exist slightly outside of the regular churn (it was the first Deadpool film to be released by Disney). Originally scheduled for last year, this February’s Captain America: Brave New World failed to break even ($415m from a $180m budget with experts claiming it needed to make over $425m) and then the summer kicked off, as it always used to, with a major Marvel release, this year being Thunderbolts. Somehow, despite a ton more hype, the film did even worse, making it to just $382m from a similar-sized budget (a far cry from the $1bn days of Marvel’s time in the sun).
On the other side of the ring, DC was also in need of a hit. In 2023, the Aquaman sequel made less half of what the original achieved, while The Flash was reported to have lost the studio around $200m. 2024 was also a year for licking wounds with just the non-DCEU sequel Joker: Folie à Deux released (a film that also bombed, losing an estimated $140m). This summer saw the official DC relaunch with James Gunn’s Superman, a $225m big bet that many saw as a predictor of not just the future success of DC but superhero movies in general. It ended up a decent-sized, if not super, hit, bringing in $605m to date, a notable success more in the US than elsewhere. It’s the third-biggest film of the year in the US, with $347m, but falls down to sixth globally (it made 42% of its gross internationally compared with, say, Jurassic World: Rebirth, which was at 60%). It came in slightly underneath Man of Steel’s $670m but it was encouraging enough to show interest in where DC is heading. That’s more than can be said for Marvel, however, with The Fantastic Four: First Steps yet to make it to $500m after a strong start led to steep declines week-on-week. It might have won the critics back (an 87% rating compared with The Marvels at 63%) but audiences will need more to turn up en masse once again.