Saturday, December 31, 2022

Christmas week USA movie box office, 2017 to 2022 (December 28)


December 28 box office down 9% compared to last year and down 50% compared to the 2017 peak, when "Star Wars:  Episode VIII" was the top-grossing movie.

Source:  Box Office Mojo

Deadline, 12/30/2022
The motion picture industry remains in a state of rehabilitation. 
Just look at the majors’ domestic box office alone. 
Back in 2019, four studios grossed over a billion apiece, with Disney-Fox reaping $4.28 billion alone. This year, only three studios grossed $1 billion or more.  
And while we do get down to the nitty gritty, they all should be graded on a curve. Audiences, especially adults, aren’t back on a consistent basis. The August-to-mid-October period was absent any tentpoles due to the pandemic’s logjam of titles in post-production. Realize that 2022 was suppose to get such big movies as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse, Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1, The Flash and Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom, to name a few. All of those moved into 2023. If anything flopped, it was due to discerning audiences who chose between going to the cinema or streaming at home.

12/29/2022 update starts here

December 28 box office down 15% compared to last year and down 52% compared to the 2017 peak, when "Star Wars:  Episode IX" ruled.

Source:  Box Office Mojo

Variety, 12/29/2022
Movie theater owners believe that next summer will be stronger, with the release of sequels including “The Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Fast and the Furious.” However, they don’t expect things will return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024. That’s a long time to wait for a business that has been hit hard by an extended shutdown and shifting tastes as viewers get more accustomed to watching on streaming services. It’s already resulting in closures and bankruptcies — Cineworld, the owner of Regal and the second biggest exhibitor in the world, filed for Chapter 11 protection in September and some industry observers think other chains might be forced to follow suit if things don’t improve.
 
12/28/2022 update starts here

December 27 box office down 5% compared to last year and down 43% compared to the 2017 peak, when "Star Wars:  Episode IX" was kickin' butt.

Source:  Box Office Mojo

Variety, 12/28/2022
In total, only three films released in 2022 managed to surpass the billion-dollar mark, a short list that includes “Top Gun: Maverick” (which took 31 days to clear the benchmark) and “Jurassic World Dominion” (which took more than four months to join the club). By comparison, nine movies released in 2019 surpassed $1 billion worldwide. “The Way of Water” is the fastest to hit the mark since 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which took 12 days. Only six movies in history have cleared $1 billion in their first two weeks of release.

Original 12/27/2022 post starts here

December 26 box office down 21% compared to last year anad down 41% compared to the 2017 peak, when "Star Wars:  Episode VIII" set the pace.

Source:  Box Office Mojo

Variety, 12/27/2022
But with the earnest return of movies comes those pesky but inevitable flops. And this year, there were some doozies. The failure of Disney’s “Lightyear” and “Strange World” cast some serious doubt on the future of family movies. Meanwhile, the well-reviewed “Bros” and “She Said” highlight the challenges facing mid-budget fare. 
Overall, the domestic box office has collected $7.4 billion so far in 2022, according to Comscore. Those ticket sales remain down 33% from the $10.6 billion generated in 2019, the last normal period at the box office. That’s partially because studios released fewer films over the course of the year, but the decline can’t only be ascribed to COVID-related production delays. It could also indicate a change in consumer habits. 
Before the year comes to a close, Variety took a look at how the major studios fared at the global box office over the past 12 months.

Related posts:
Third weekend in December.  (12/19/2022)
First weekend in December.  (12/5/2022)
Thranksgiving 2022 daily top 10 movie grosses (Wednesday-Sunday)  (11/28/2022)
Pre-Thanksgiving box office weekend down 47% from 2017 peak.  (11/21/2022)
Going down: October 2022 box office drops 44% compared to 2018. (11/3/2022)
Weekend box office reports for October 2020.  (series)

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