How the 2024 Box Office Rallied From a Dire First Half to an $8.7 Billion Year

The year 2024 was expected to be a step back for movie theaters in their effort to rebuild after the COVID-19 pandemic due to the impact of the Hollywood strikes. And while it was, the box office ended far closer to 2023 than expected.

Thanks to a strong second half, domestic annual grosses finished at a preliminary estimate of $8.7 billion, down 4% year-over-year from the $9.06 billion recorded in 2023 and well above the flat $8 billion that was initially projected by Gower Street Analytics at the start of 2024.

“Everyone in the movie theater business has been saying for the past several years that it’s all about volume,” Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian told TheWrap. “The theaters need more movies. The great second half we’ve had, starting with ‘Inside Out 2,’ has proven that, and you’re seeing it again right now with this Thanksgiving and Christmas boom we’re having where multiple films are drawing huge numbers.”

The 2024 box office was essentially a tale of two halves. The first half, where domestic totals only reached $3.55 billion, was below even the first half of 2022, the first full year for movie theaters after the pandemic shutdown.

But the second half, with an estimated $4.9 billion, actually exceeded the $4.6 billion grossed in the second half of 2023, a period that included the historic success of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” but was counterbalanced by a Thanksgiving and Christmas season where only a precious few films made any significant amount.

Exhibitors are confident that the second half of 2024 is more indicative of the future of moviegoing than the first — one where a rising number of wide releases reduces the chances of weeks-long slumps and where multiple films can thrive at the same time. But it is also a future where audiences are even less likely to take a chance on an original new film as opposed to a familiar sequel, and one where the overall health of the industry continues to rise and fall on Disney’s fortunes.

The strike takes its toll

In the autumn of 2023, as SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood’s studios waded through weeks of negotiations to end the actors’ strike, film execs did not know when their stars would be back to finish films that had stopped shooting or to promote films already in the can. As a result, features like Disney’s “Elio” and “Deadpool & Wolverine” were pushed out of the first half of 2024, and the decrease in releases took its toll.

Over the first five months of the year, the only studio that was delivering box office grosses to theaters on a significant level was Warner Bros. It started in January with the long legs for its holiday hit “Wonka” and continued in March with the Legendary Pictures duo of “Godzilla x Kong” and “Dune: Part Two.” (The strikes delayed “Dune” from November 2023 to March 2024.)

That critical support for theaters was something that Warner could hang its hat on when it faced turbulence later in the year. The domestic box office success of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was sandwiched between two of the most high-profile flops of the year in “Furiosa” and “Joker: Folie a Deux.”

“Furiosa,” along with the Universal blunder “The Fall Guy,” was part of a particularly woeful May, which was without a Marvel film to boost numbers for the first time since 2006. Monthly grosses sunk to the worst level the industry had seen outside of the pandemic in the last quarter-century. By mid-June, the domestic box office total was 27.5% behind 2023’s pace and 42.6% behind 2019.

Anxiety to the rescue

Amidst all the early summer misery, studios and exhibitors sent the same message: This too shall pass. With the slate delays caused by the strikes isolated to the first half of the year, they exuded confidence that the second half would signal a major rebound.

That turnaround did indeed happen, and slightly earlier than anticipated. Disney/Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” was expected to be a successful sequel, but few in the industry predicted it to be the highest-grossing film of the year and the highest-grossing animated film of all time, with just shy of $1.7 billion worldwide.

More big hit films soon followed, including “Despicable Me 4,” ($361 million domestic) “Twisters,” ($267.7 million) and the delayed “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($636.7 million), which became the highest grossing R-rated film of all time with $1.33 billion worldwide. By the end of the summer, the year-over-year deficit shrank to 14.4% — and the comeback wasn’t done.

Disney roars back

When Disney CEO Bob Iger announced “Moana 2” at the start of 2024 on an earnings call, Disney was looking to rebound after an uncharacteristically inconsistent 2023. For every success like “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” or “Elemental,” the box office giant suffered a flop like “The Marvels” or “Wish.”

By the time “Moana 2” hit theaters at Thanksgiving, Disney had reasserted its dominance. With the minor exception of the 20th Century low-budget horror sequel “The First Omen,” every 2024 release for the company was a success.

“Moana 2” cemented that dominance with a $225 million five-day opening that generated the biggest Thanksgiving opening in history. As of writing, it has crossed $900 million worldwide and will be the third $1 billion release of 2024 — all from Disney.

With annual grosses of more than $2 billion domestic and $5 billion worldwide, Disney has once again shown that while other studios are more than capable of releasing global cultural hits like “Barbie” (Warner Bros.) or “Oppenheimer” (Universal), there is no true recovery for movie theaters without Disney’s IP stable firing on all cylinders. With three more Marvel movies and sequels to “Zootopia” and “Avatar” on the slate next year, expect exhibitors to once again turn to Disney as the big moneymaker.

IP still rules

None of those films listed above were truly original films, as the dominance of pre-existing IP only expanded in 2024. Films that aren’t sequels or an adaptation of another form of media not only didn’t crack the top 10 this year, they didn’t even crack the top 20.

The non-sequels that did break into the top 20 include Universal’s smash hit musical “Wicked,” which is now the highest grossing film adaptation of a Broadway musical ever. It of course also had its connection to the classic “The Wizard of Oz” to draw in audiences. Book adaptations like Sony’s “It Ends With Us” from author Colleen Hoover and Universal/DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot” from Peter Brown also made that list.

For a truly original film, you have to turn to Paramount and John Krasinski’s summer family film “IF,” a movie about a secret world of imaginary friends, and Amazon MGM’s “Red One,” a film that had a turbulent production and barely outgrossed its production budget theatrically but has become a smash streaming hit for Amazon Prime.

“IF” was the top original domestic grosser with $111 million while “Red One” was the top original global grosser with $281 million. Honorable mention goes to Neon’s indie horror breakout hit “Longlegs,” which used a crackerjack digital marketing campaign to gross $74.6 million domestic and $126.9 million worldwide against a $10 million budget.

A preview of 2025?

The split-personality box office of 2024 compares favorably to the current box office. Paramount’s “Sonic 3” and Disney’s “Mufasa” have become steady chart-toppers, while Focus’ “Nosferatu” and Searchlight’s “A Complete Unknown” have earned the strongest openings for their distributors since the pandemic. And “Moana 2” and “Wicked” are posting robust numbers despite being in theaters for more than a month.

It is that sort of widespread success that both studios and theaters want to see more of in 2025, a year that won’t be hindered by strike-related delays.

With 110 wide releases and counting set to come in the new year, there’s a better chance of that happening as long as studio marketing and filmmaker quality continue to get audiences in the seats.

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