We’ve been hearing a lot about how 2023 was a rebound year for the film industry. Still, it’s important to note that today’s good is yesterday’s bad. THR, in a recent article, noted that the box office has shrunk by nearly 20% since the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to one unnamed studio’s metrics, this number is a troubling sign that basically one in every five people just hasn’t come back to theaters to watch movies. The news comes as studios struggle to figure out what will bring people back into seats and were surprised on multiple accounts this year by the films that grabbed the most attention. Obviously, superhero films (outside of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) saw a drop in attendance as DC films flopped across the board and Marvel struggled, but audiences also didn’t turn up for successful franchise fare either, ignoring the likes of Indian Jones and Mission: Impossible.
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Hollywood might have been able to excuse it all as a pandemic hangover and struggles with competing with streaming if global audiences hadn’t turned out for “Barbenhemier” like nothing they’d ever seen before. The meme-ified duo of films that landed on the same day counted for nearly 10% of all domestic ticket sales and nearly 29% of the top 10 grossing films. Clearly, people want to come to the movies when they’re offered something original and engaging. That’s only backed up by the fact that audiences turned out in spades for smaller, independent fare like Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City or Taylor Swift’s independently distributed concert film (if anything Swift does can be considered small).
The lesson here is that the film industry needs to pivot, something that many of the executives and insiders interviewed for the THR piece refreshingly admitted. Now, whether they’ll actually do that is another question.
