4 Reasons the Memorial Day Box Office Was Terrible and What It Means for a Struggling Film Industry | Analysis

For Memorial Day weekend, Already predicted This year’s box office takings are likely to be the lowest so far this century. Final result It’s even lower than that.

The weekend’s top-grossing film, “Furiosa,” made just $32 million over the four-day period, making it the lowest-grossing Memorial Day release since 1995, when the family film “Casper” grossed $22 million not adjusted for inflation.

Box office analytics company Nash Information Systems said: Numbershad projected $160 million in four-day grosses before the weekend began, enough to make it the lowest Memorial Day weekend since at least 1999. But final grosses only came in at $128 million, down 37% from last year and the lowest in 26 years.

This dramatic drop may signal a real turning point for the theatrical film industry. How will a Memorial Day movie that saw its critically acclaimed box office drop to a 26-year low impact the future of the theatrical industry? And what changes will studios that choose to leverage streaming while still producing movies for theaters need to make to adapt to the new reality?

Industry sources told TheWrap that the long-term impact of such a weak weekend is still difficult to gauge because 2024 box office data is confounded by last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Production delays caused by the strikes have made movie showings in theaters shaky since they reopened, prolonging box office volatility.

“I don’t think this is a tipping point where we can say, ‘If the pandemic doesn’t end it, the strikes are going to end it,’” ComScore analyst Paul Dergarabedian said. “This is what I think is a recession. Everyone in Hollywood predicted this. “As the strike dragged on for weeks, any hopes of a really strong performance over Memorial Day weekend were dashed by a number of factors.”

The poor box office performance of Furiosa and The Garfield Movie compared to past Memorial Day releases is certainly a factor, but the box office challenge is bigger than any one film.

Memorial Day was the only day in May where monthly domestic gross sales exceeded $500 million, with $774 million for the entire month of May in 2023 and $785 million in 2022. From 2009 to 2019, the lowest May gross sales were in 2017 with $835 million, and there were eight times when May gross sales exceeded $1 billion.

The question is whether May’s historically weak box office performance is a sign of crisis for the overall box office.

The causes of this disastrous May are myriad, but here are some of the big ones:

Business Strikes lead to sharp decline in candidates

Cinema and studio executives have known since the start of 2024 that the first half of the year would be tough. With films like Pixar’s “Elio,” “Mission: Impossible 8” and “Deadpool & Wolverine” having their release dates pushed back due to production delays caused by last year’s 191-day double strike, cinemas will likely not have many of the movies they need to keep business humming.

Outside of a strong March featuring Warner Bros./Legendary’s Dune Part 2 and Godzilla vs. Kong, and Universal/DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda 4, the box office has been hurt by a lack of consistent releases.

After the box office slowed down in March, cinemas saw a lot less films in April, and due in part to the strike, there were no blockbusters like last year. “Super Mario Bros. The Movie” Or even a modest success like April 2022. “Sonic the Hedgehog 2Instead, the highest-grossing film released in April 2024 was A24’s “Civil War,” which brought in just $68.1 million at the domestic box office.

“Theaters are a very fragile ecosystem, and anything that disrupts that has a ripple effect that will last,” Dergarabedian said. “It’s taken a long time to get here, and it’s going to take even longer to get out of it — much longer than any one big blockbuster that makes you think, ‘everything’s good again,’ or any movie that doesn’t do well at the box office that doesn’t do well at the box office.”

With no films doing well as of the end of April, the box office was already struggling heading into the start of the summer season, but…

Business No surprise

Heading into its final weekend, the domestic box office is on track to record its worst monthly total since at least 2006, the last pandemic-free year without a Marvel movie opening at the start of the summer.

Marvel Studios “Deadpool and Wolverine” From early May to late July, production delays caused by the strike left theaters with only The Fall Guy, which was a huge flop, grossing just $143 million worldwide against a pre-marketing budget of $125 million.

With the exception of the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the box office has grossed more than $100 million every May since 2015. This year, only one film, Disney/20th Century, has grossed more than $35 million since early April. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Launched at $58.4 million.

With Marvel failing to boost box office numbers through May, cinemas were deprived of a major early summer season staple, and the domino effect of its absence continued through Memorial Day weekend, leaving the market without one of its major anchor franchises.

Business “Furiosa” and “Garfield” are not four-quadrant tentpoles

“Furiosa: The Mad Max Saga” looks set to be a big-budget flop for Warner Bros. A few months later of big hit The film features films across a variety of genres. Expected to gross $40 million domestically and $80-85 million worldwide after an extended domestic release, the film only grossed $32 million domestically and $65 million worldwide against a budget of $168 million, despite receiving positive reviews from critics and audiences.

But even if Mad Max: Fury Road’s box office haul is on par with 2015’s film, which opened with $45 million and grossed $379 million worldwide, it’s worth noting that Furiosa isn’t expected to be a Fast & Furious or Disney remake-level money maker in theaters, and instead skewed toward male audiences and longtime Mad Max fans.

So was “Garfield the Movie,” which got off to a predictable start with $31.1 million at the box office. The film should be profitable for Sony Pictures, having grossed $91 million so far against a production budget of $60 million that Alcon funded before marketing. Based on a comic book that hasn’t figured prominently in pop culture lately, “Garfield” was set up as a family film rather than a four-parter like the upcoming “Inside Out 2” and “Despicable Me,” and it has performed as such.

Had box office numbers been stronger, these two films would have provided secondary support to the theatrical market, allowing franchise films with bigger buzz to make bigger contributions, but it’s these two that are dominating the box office with no film releasing in North America with over $200 million in box office sales in over two months.

Business Viewers become more selective

Finally, the post-COVID-shutdown market continues to show a trend that cinemas and studio executives alike are well aware of: the bar has gotten higher to capture the attention of a broad audience.

Sure, a blockbuster can come from anywhere — Dune Part II, Sound of Freedom, and the Barbenheimer trilogy prove that — but underperforming films like Furiosa and The Fall Guys also show that even if a big movie gets positive reviews and word of mouth, it’s not always enough.

There’s no exact recipe for garnering widespread cultural attention. Sometimes, a great trailer like this one does the trick. “Barbie” Being placed before another cultural hit like “Avatar: The Waterway” will help generate buzz, and something about the film will help spread awareness.M3GAN” dance Or Javier Bardem screaming: “Lisan al-Ghaib!” Sometimes it’s pure nostalgia, like Hugh Jackman reprising his role as Wolverine for the tenth time in a costume that’s true to the comic books.

But for many people, the pandemic has permanently altered people’s entertainment habits, creating a category for movies that spans the gap between “don’t see it” and “see it in theaters”: “wait for it,” people who are intrigued by a film’s acclaim but decide to wait until it’s available for digital rental or streaming rather than spend money on premium movie tickets and concessions (not to mention babysitters).

“The Fall Guy” only just started streaming on premium on-demand (Universal launched it digitally on May 21, less than three weeks after its theatrical release), so it remains to be seen whether it will perform well enough on digital rentals and Peacock to provide Universal with a return on its investment. Perhaps “Furiosa” will see a post-theatrical bounce back like “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Numbers In 2015, it earned $56.4 million from physical media sales in North America.

But even if PVOD helps these films save financial respectability, it’s no consolation to cinemas, which continue to ride the roller coaster of spectacular rises and long slumps that have characterized the post-COVID box office.

For the rest of the summer, Disney/Pixar “Inside Out 2” The film is expected to gross $80 million during its opening weekend in mid-June. “Bad Boys Ride or Die” and “A Quiet Place: Day 1” While it may not push the market to the highs typically seen in June, it should deliver more sustainable numbers than May.

July will see some highlights including: “Despicable Me 4” and “Deadpool & Wolverine” are both expected to be the first theatrical releases in a year to gross over $100 million, kicking off what industry insiders say is likely to be a strong second half of 2024 at the box office.

Any set-up that could help avoid the months of slump that have been repeated since 2021 would be hugely welcomed.