2024 always looked like it was going to be a down year for the industry. Last year’s SAG and WGA strikes delayed some movies until much later this year, or well into 2025. It certainly doesn’t help that theaters were still very much in recovery mode in the aftermath of the pandemic. Unfortunately, at just about every turn, things have gone from bad to worse. Movies like “Furiosa” and “The Fall Guy” have vastly underperformed, setting up a brutal summer at the box office. Successes such as “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” which crossed the $300 million mark over the weekend, have been the exception this year, rather than the rule.
Truthfully, it’s tough to expect a lot from a weekend where the biggest draws were a pair of holdovers that underperformed in the first place. Several new films did open, but they had limited appeal. Crunchyroll’s anime “Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle” opened to $3.5 million on just over 1,100 screens, giving it a pretty good per-theater average north of $3,100. But the movie placed seventh on the charts, so it’s small potatoes overall. IFC’s unrated slasher “In a Violent Nature” also posted a solid opening, relatively speaking, pulling in $2.1 million on just over 1,400 screens. Again, not bad for IFC, but it’s not going to do much for the bigger picture.
Bleecker Street’s “Ezra” was far worse off and opened to just $1.1 million on more than $1,300 screens. Robert De Niro’s good name couldn’t help that one at all. Similarly, Roadside Attractions’ “Summer Camp” barely cleared $1 million on more than 1,700 screens and failed to crack the top ten. These disappointments add up. It’s what has led us to a place where ticket sales are lagging 24% behind this same point in 2023. And remember: Last year, we were lagging behind pre-pandemic ticket sales. $10 billion annually is beginning to feel like a distant pipe dream.