What Will The 2024 Box Office Look Like?
Into the Great Post-Superhero Unknown
Madame Web tanking at the box office was great for the continued meme-ification of Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff universe. But it’s a concerning, if fascinating, sign for Hollywood.
Since Iron Man burst onto the scene in 2008, superhero films have been about the closest thing to surefire hits. Throughout the 2010s, which saw the conclusions of reliable intellectual property like Harry Potter and Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth saga, the one steady presence was the reliability of Marvel films to achieve some minimum level of box office success. They even outlasted Star Wars, long considered an unapproachable box office juggernaut, when Solo bombed in 2018 just weeks after Avengers: Infinity War took theaters by storm. Star Wars wasn’t the big kid on the block anymore. That title belonged to Marvel.
In 2024, the first time in more than a decade, the movies will not be dominated by spandex and caped crusaders, as a look at the 2024 movie calendar reveals an absence of superhero movies. On one hand, hooray! It’s about time that Hollywood picks up on general audience’s apparent superhero fatigue. But on the other hand, what is going to replace the superhero film as the studio tentpole? And on a third, are kids movies and low-budget, high-concept horror the only sure bets left?
Dune: Part Two’s strong performance offered some brief euphoria, but a look at the remainder of the cinematic calendar is sobering. Beyond Deadpool 3, which is a lock to become the second billion dollar R-rated film, the rest of the releases are a smattering of secondary franchise movies, high-concept action films, and kids movies. Without any Star Wars or Marvel, the theatrical landscape is wide open. There are very few sure things in sight.
Take the prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa. But Fury Road, for all its well-deserved critical successes, didn’t even cross the $400 million mark worldwide. Granted, Furiosa now has Fury Road’s goodwill and critical success – but is a property as unusual as Mad Max, which has seen just four releases over six decades, going to resonate with general audiences? It’s easy to see a world where Furiosa matches Fury Road with a good, not great performance. It’s also easy to envision a world where the bare release calendar and audience goodwill elevate it to breakout sequel status. But it’s just as easy to see the movie fail to connect with general audiences and underperform beyond the expected social media praise.
Other franchise releases include Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – another follow-up to a well-regarded trilogy that, while successful, never lit the box office on fire (2014’s Dawn was the franchise highwater mark at a little over $700 million worldwide, but that’s followed by Tim Burton’s dreadful 2001 remake). $700 million is likely the franchise’s ceiling, with more realistic expectations around War’s 2017 $500 million. This would be a solid performance – but nothing world-beating.
Questions swirl around every other major studio release: Godzilla vs. Kong performed well as the first real post-COVID blockbuster, but will Godzilla x Kong: A New Empire succeed without as clear a hook (giant ape punches giant lizard) for audiences? Will it suffer after Godzilla: Minus One was such a critical darling? (It is off to a very solid start.) Will audiences respond to a musical Joker sequel with the same interest as the first Joker? Will Twisters find the same audience almost three decades after its predecessor? Will Civil War be any good? Will audiences show up for a new Alien movie after the franchise’s recent struggles?
No one could have looked at the 2023 release schedule and predicted that Barbie and Oppenheimer would become such phenomena. That may urge some modesty on the part of anyone trying to predict how the 2024 box office will turn out. A fun high-concept action romp like The Fall Guy could strike a chord with audiences given Ryan Gosling’s star power. The sure bets remain kids movies like Despicable Me 4 and low-budget horror films that don’t need to gross much to be profitable. Beyond that is anyone’s guess — and that’s what makes watching the 2024 box office so exciting.
2023 taught us that audiences will show up for well-made films that take audiences seriously, and just continuing to pump out the same franchise dreck will result in diminishing returns. One thing is for sure: the 2024 box office will be one of the most fascinating ones to watch in recent memory. Studio marketing teams will just have to come up with a clever name for the viral Quiet Place/Horizon June 28 crossover.
*gasp*
Of course I am not referring to Terminator 2!!! The slightest mention, the merest suggestion, is tantamount to you accusing me of the most grievous of slanders. After all, for decades I displayed scenes from the movie to my Film Production class (with particular delight in pointing out the stunt double blatantly identifiable in the motorcycle/truck sequence). T2 is a classic of the genre and directed by a Canadian – it is as sacrosanct up here as a playlist of Celine Dion's Greatest Hits.
Thank you for recommending "Pig" – I have been looking for an excuse to like Nicholas Cage... I just hope the scene you describe has some of the exquisite qualities of Stanley Tucci's cooking an omelet at the conclusion of "Big Night" (kudos to Ken Kelsch).
Meanwhile, as Marie Antoinette said of superheroes, "Let them eat kryptonite."
"No one could have looked at the 2023 release schedule and predicted that Barbie and Oppenheimer would become such phenomena." Excepting, of course, everybody, but I digress –
Once upon a time, in a galaxy just around the corner, a multiplex was displaying, in adjacent theatres, "Le Gloire De Mon Père" and one of the interminable Terminator sequels. We sat in front of the gentle, pastoral former as the explosions and screams from the latter reverberated through the walls. In our film (directed by Yves Robert, based on the writing of Marcel Pagnol) there is a scene wherein two boys are setting bird snares with live insects as lures (must have been during a lull in the bloodletting next door).The jar containing the bait has fallen open and the director cuts to a closeup of half a dozen or so bugs on the back of a boy's hand. The audience gasped as one – and then, since the bugs are harmless, there was a general chuckle as the audience recognized the contrast between our focussed experience and that of those bathing in the wash of mayhem on the other side of the wall.
Thus the difference between a film and a cartoon.
As Pagnol was oft heard to have said, "Vive la différence, mais...."