Disney Is Still Out-Foxing The Box Office

Even with mega-hits like 'Deadpool & Wolverine' and 'Avatar: The Way of Water, theaters still lack the once-reliable revenue from a fully functioning 20th Century Fox.

Alien: Romulus has earned $84 million after two weeks in China, racing toward a $100 million-plus cume and a remarkable (for a Hollywood import) 4x multiplier. It follows Free Guy ($95 million in 2021), Deadpool & Wolverine ($59 million, past the $42 million Chinese gross for Once Upon a Deadpool in late 2018) and Avatar: The Way of Water ($255 million in 2022/2023) as Hollywood biggies comparatively bucking the trend of earnings well below what would have been expected in the 2010s. The 20th Century tentpoles aren’t alone, as Jurassic World Dominion ($160 million in 2022) and Godzilla Vs. Kong ($188 million in 2021) can attest. Nor have they all been over-performers. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes earned $29 million versus the over/under $110 million earned by War for the Planet of the Apes in 2017 and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014. However, 20th Century Studios has been unusually consistent compared to its peers, which makes its overall lack of theatrical output since becoming part of the Disney empire all the more disappointing.

Fox (not counting Searchlight) released 17 newbies in 2016, 16 in 2017 and 12 in 2018. In 2022, 20th Century Studios offered six new theatricals; last year saw just three. It’s not like they didn’t previously release big-deal X-Men flicks *and* breakout programmers like The Heat, Water for Elephants, The Greatest Showman and Life of Pi. For the record, the commercial decline for studio programmers like Snatched and Widows in the mid-2010s surely factored into Disney offering fewer “just a movie” theatricals from 20th Century Studios. Even without the previous contractual obligations that would have seen certain “formally Fox” films make their streaming debuts not on Hulu but on HBO Max had they been theatrically released, I’m not pretending that (quality notwithstanding) the likes of No One Will Save You, The Princess or even Prey would have been theatrical hits. However, you can’t take a studio that used to release 15-20 new wide-release movies each year into theaters and remold it into one that offers but a few and not expect a severe dent in overall theatrical revenue.