The Most Critical Challenge Facing Movie Theaters Is One of Supply Not Demand

Even while being starved for tentpoles amid Hollywood's Netflix envy as the media cheers its demise, the box office still delivers record debuts, franchise milestones and sleeper hits

Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash

We’ll know the Friday grosses soon enough, but both Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and The Garfield Movie will likely have halfway decent post-holiday holds without necessarily undercutting their softer-than-hoped (especially for the former) Fri-Mon Memorial Day frame. If they hold firm, it will partially be because the closest thing to a new biggie is Daisy Ridley’s well-received true-life inspirational swimming melodrama Young Woman and the Sea, which began life as a Disney+ original before Jerry Bruckheimer pushed for what will at least be a modest theatrical release. That’s a net positive, but this is a post-Memorial Day weekend that previously housed sky-high openings for Finding Nemo ($70 million in 2003), Wonder Woman ($104 million in 2017) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($121 million in 2023). So… why not a single, even halfhearted tentpole this weekend? 

From March 2021 to March 2022, a slew of films (Godzilla Vs. Kong, Demon Slayer, Free Guy, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Sing 2, Scream and Uncharted) performed at or above par compared to pre-COVID expectations. In early March of 2022, The Batman became the biggest-grossing reboot ever in North America ($370 million) and second worldwide ($770 million) behind (Marvel Studios’ Iron Man co-starring) Spider-Man: Homecoming ($881 million in 2017). With all the handwringing about the overall fate of the theatrical industry –  with a miserable first two months of 2024 now weathering a pitiful May as summer also-rans unsurprisingly fail to perform like industry tentpoles – for the umpteenth time over the last four years, the problem remains the same. Spoiler: it’s supply, not demand. If studios don’t give audiences movies they want to see, they’ll stay home.