The end of 2023 saw many gloomy mutterings about losing all the ground the box office recovery gained through the year in a 2024 inevitably hampered by a throttled content pipeline. A rather slow start to the 2024 box office didn’t do much to offset these concerns. Despite these challenges, however, the first quarter of 2024 managed to close slightly stronger than was initially expected. With some key releases expected to perform well later in the year, too, this has led Gower Street Analytics to upgrade its predictions for the 2024 box office- and that’s always good news! Our entertainment lawyer from Blake & Wang P.A., Brandon Blake, is here to share this good news.
Upward Revision
Gower Street Analytics has raised its global box office predictions for 2024 to $32.3B. This represents a 2.5% increase on the initial $31.5B prediction. While it would still close the year out around 5% lower than last year, it would certainly be a welcome shift. The revision would also have been higher if not for some marked exchange rate fluctuations globally that have hurt the collective gain across international markets. In a fickle market like finance, we may well see that reverse itself later in the year, too.
Unpacking the Figures
This upward revision is also based on a Q1 actual performance of 1% ahead of domestic projections for both the US and China. Other global markets turned in an impressive 11% higher than previous estimates, too. These gains, coupled with some changes to the release schedule that added high-profile properties like Moana 2 to the 2024 calendar, are good reasons to look at the rest of the year with a little more optimism than previously.
Currently, we may see a $8.2B domestic box office from 2024, with a $550M increase (to $16.2B) for international markets besides China. China is expected to remain relatively flat. While it may not (yet) be a full return to pre-pandemic levels, it’s some fantastic news from what was initially a rather gloomy box office cycle. Let’s hope to have even more good news to share as we get further into the 2024 box office year.
