Movie Theaters Are Not Dying!

July 3, 20247 Mins Read

Written by Alex Angelopoulos. Published: July 03 2024

As of late,
many people across the entertainment industry have had movie
theaters on the brain and, sadly, not in the best light. 6 months
into the 2024 box office and, so far, only a handful of movies have
been able to break through to audiences to bring in that sweet
sweet mula. The notable moneymakers prior to the 2024 Summer movie
season have included Denis Villeneuve’s Dune:
Part Two, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, and Kung Fu Panda 4 — all sequels in established
franchises. One of the few releases not connected to an IP to make
any success at the box office is Alex Garland’s Civil War, which is A24’s most expensive film to date and
has made around $114 million worldwide.

So yes,
everything I just mentioned has been a positive mark for the 2024
box office. However, these movies have been the exception rather
than the rule. Not many movies have had huge opening weekends, nor
have there been many movies that have come even close to that
golden $1 billion achievement. Compared to this time last year,
movies like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Fast X, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and, of course, the 1-2
punch of Barbenheimer, were doing incredibly well to bring
audiences to the movie theaters. Heck, if you flash back to 2 years
ago around this time, Top Gun: Maverick was being heralded
as a savior for movie theaters, bringing so many audiences to the
movie theater for the first time since before the Pandemic.

So, what the
goofy goober has happened to the box office this year?! Is it the
movies themselves not capturing audiences’ attention? Could it be a
result of the writers’ and actors’ strikes from last year affecting
the current landscape of releases? Or, perhaps the most discerning
question to all cinephiles out there (myself included)… Do people
just not care enough to go to the movies anymore? Many outlets have
been pondering these questions over the last couple weeks; why
wouldn’t they? The place we go to for magic is definitely sick
right now, and people are desperate to find some sort of cure.

Although
there are quite a lot of people shouting doomsday for the fate of
movie theaters, I couldn’t bring myself to reach the same
conclusion. Yes, movie theaters have been struggling in recent
years, especially since everything changed when the Pandemic
attacked. When people got so used to doing things inside, they got
more comfortable with the idea of watching big movies from the
comfort of their homes. However, what some people tend to forget is
that, when people were able to safely return to theaters, they
realized how much they had missed that type of experience.

Speaking from
memory, I will never forget the first time I saw Spider-Man: No
Way Home on opening night, with crowds that were as excited to
see this historic event on the big screen. After seeing it again
for the last round of Spider-Mondays, people in that theater were
as excited to be there as they were 2.5 years ago. As Brad
Pitt’s character said in Babylon, “That means
something.” It means that people still cherish the theatrical
experience.

On a
different side of the industry, take a look at how many records
Barbenheimer broke last Summer. It’s not an exaggeration to say
that the double feature of Barbie and Oppenheimer became a cultural phenomenon! Everyone and their grandmother
(Thelma included) was talking about how cool it was to see those
films back-to-back with others who were there for the exact same
reason: to see Barbie Girls and the Atomic Bomb BOTH on the big
screen on the same day. Re-read that last sentence — does that
make any sense? It doesn’t, and yet people went in droves to see
those movies together as one. That is the textbook definition of
awesome.

Even on a
smaller scale, people still enjoying going to the movies. Remember
that little movie Everything Everywhere All at Once? You
might think I’m joking, but these are the facts of the case, Your
Honor: Everything Everywhere All at Once is an independent
movie that grossed $143 million worldwide on a budget of around $25
million. Its theatrical run was something akin to The Little Engine
That Could, where people saw it once and then kept telling everyone
they knew to go see it until it ended up winning the Oscar for Best
Picture.

Another movie
folks saw several times in theaters was — wait for it — a Netflix
movie! Crazy, right?! Nevertheless, that’s just how remarkable it
was to see Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion in
theaters. After the movie had an incredibly successful premiere at
the Toronto International Film Festival, people were campaigning
for Netflix to give the film a traditional theatrical release
because of how well it played to a large crowd. Eventually, Netflix
did budge by giving the Knives Out sequel a limited,
one-week theatrical run in major movie theaters (not just their
usual “bare minimum” release strategy to qualify for Oscars), a
month prior to its release on the streamer. In about 600 theaters
for one week only, Glass Onion grossed $15 million. Given
the parameters of the release, that’s incredible!

So yes, the
2024 box office may be down but not for the count and, thankfully,
the Summer movie season has finally started to pick up the pace.
Although it was definitely off to a slow start, movies have been
doing much better at the box office this past month than they had
been 5 months prior. Bad Boys: Ride or Die has had an
impressive run so far, with a total of $331 million worldwide (and
counting) on a $100 million production budget — the movie
officially broke even and is still making Sony money. Wanna know
who else has been making just a little bit of money? Only that
little indie studio Pixar with Inside Out 2 having the
biggest opening weekend of the year at $154 million domestic and
has quickly become the first movie of 2024 to cross $1 billion
worldwide (and it has become the fastest animated movie to reach
that milestone as well).

The box
office sure has been making a lot of noise as of late, even for
movies that are all about being quiet. Yup, I sure am talking about A Quiet Place: Day One, which has had the biggest opening
for the franchise this past weekend at $99 million globally, and
it’s not just a direct sequel; rather, it’s a spinoff/prequel that
is breaking these barriers at the box office, and given how early
it is in it’s theatrical run, it’s bound to keep audiences going to
the theaters in the droves (albeit quietly… rules of the
house).

Meanwhile,
the much-anticipated Deadpool & Wolverine is slated to
break records when it opens later this month (July 26), with the
Marvel feature set to rake in about $160 million, which would not
only be the biggest opening this year but the biggest opening ever
for an R-rated movie! Couple that with Universal announcing it has
moved up the release date of Wicked to coincide with the
opening of Gladiator II (we may very well have the next
Barbenheimer here, folks!), and it’s safe to say that things are
definitely looking up for movie theaters.