Three Key Reasons Why The Box Office Is Still Trailing Pre-Covid Heights

Even amid a global pandemic and a push to streaming, the overall box office is mostly being hampered by a downturn in the very elements that propped it up in the 2010s

Following the electronic sell-through debut of The Marvels this past Tuesday, which led to it shooting up to the top of the various VOD (Vudu, Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, etc.) charts, this week saw the launch likewise for Walt Disney Animation’s Wish.

Meanwhile, this Tuesday saw the 96th Academy Awards nominations get unveiled. Offhand, the “Barbie got snubbed” conversation (Margot Robbie got a nod for producing the Best Picture nominee and Greta Gerwig was honored in the Best Adapted Screenplay category) seems to imply that the “this latest film news or film is problematic” online discourse becoming almost as much on disingenuous autopilot as the “this franchise is bad now because it features women and/or minorities” YouTube troll industrial complex. But I digress.

What do these three items - the home release of a flop superhero movie and then a flop Disney followed by the Oscar nominations, have to do with each other?

Well, pardon the digression, but the summer of 2022 had 45% fewer wide-release films compared to the summer of 2019 (yes, counting Disney’s Avengers: Endgame in late April). The only reason the respective domestic box office was down 32% instead of 44% was that Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick earned around $550 million more than expected while also juicing the awareness = interest fortunes of WB’s Elvis, Sony’s Bullet Train and Sony’s Where the Crawdads Sing via fortuitous trailer placement.

2023 was supposed to be a rebound year, with 500 total releases. That was still the lowest “non-Covid” year since 2002, but there was reason to be optimistic. The (still huge considering competition, Covid variables and economic circumstances) $8.637 billion total for in-year releases was a 15% jump from 2022.

However, it was still well below the $9-$11 billion cumes to which theaters had become accustomed — not accounting for inflation and PLF-related price bumps — starting in 2002. However, the discrepancy can be accounted for via almost three specific variables, and it could be simpler than just Covid-related harm and a doomed push-to-streaming.