When the sun sets at the box office for the 2020 movie, it will be hard to think of the numbers as any less disastrous.
After five consecutive years of North American revenues in excess of $ 11 billion, they are expected to hit a nearly 40-year low of about $ 2.3 billion this year. According to data company Comscore, that will be 80% less than last year.
Globally, where markets have been able to recover better, ticket sales are likely to end between $ 11 and $ 12 billion. Last year, that total was $ 42.5 billion. But 2020 is of course a year with a big asterisk.
“It’s been a year like no other,” said Jim Orr, president of Universal Pictures’ national theatrical distribution. “We have never seen this small business in this industry.”
Outside of January and February, it is impossible to judge the box office for the year by pre-pandemic standards. The checkout is generally quite predictable in a normal year. But when theaters closed on March 20, “it all went out the window,” said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at Comscore. “The unpredictability became the constant.”
Most North American theaters did not open for six months in a row during the summer season, which typically accounts for about 40% of annual revenues. In the past two years, the summer movie season has grossed more than $ 4.3 billion. This year, it raised $ 176.5 million, largely through drive-ins.
“The drive-in became the hero of the summer,” Dergarabedian said.
When the indoor theaters reopened in late August and early September, they had limited capacity and limited product. Currently, about 35% of theaters in the US are open and some of the biggest markets, including New York and Los Angeles, remain closed.
While there has been a steady stream of new releases, the big box office hits have been rare. Some turned to streaming services, others became premium digital rentals, but most simply dropped out in 2021 and beyond.
Perhaps there is no more fact than that 2020 was the first time in more than a decade without a Marvel movie. Walt Disney Co.’s superhero factory topped the year-end charts for the past two years with “Avengers: Endgame” and “Black Panther” and has regularly had two or more films in the top ten.
Unsurprisingly, the 2020 top 10 is a bit chaotic, consisting mostly of films from the first two months of the year. Sony’s Will Smith sequel, “Bad Boys for Life,” has ranked No. 1 in North America with $ 206.3 million since its January release. Globally, it ranks second after the Chinese movie “The Eight Hundred”, the first time the world’s most important film was made outside of Hollywood.
The only films to make the top 10 after the close are Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” in eighth place with $ 57.2 million, and the family-friendly animated sequel “The Croods: A New Age,” which opened on Thanksgiving and made $ 30.8 million so far to place him in 10th place.
And at least 15 films in the top 100 were retro releases, including ‘Hocus Pocus’, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’.
“The positive side of movie theaters is that although people had unlimited options at home, people kept looking for the cinema,” said Dergarabedian. “People have a desire to get out of the house and have fun. That desire has not changed, but the ability to do so has been profoundly limited. “
In fact, the way opening weekends are rated has changed, once they become a reliable indicator of a movie’s long-term outlook, and may well continue to be.
The instant gratification we offered on Sunday morning after opening on Friday? It probably won’t happen again in the near future, ”said Orr.
Theaters have adopted improved security protocols and experimented with different ways to make people sit back, including renting private theaters, but turnout in the fall and winter has been limited.
“People go to the movies to escape. If you go to a movie theater where you have to wear a mask and sit separately and be very aware of your surroundings, that’s not how the theater experience is supposed to work, ” said John Sloss, director of the Cinetic Media Advisory firm. “To judge this year in terms of theater attendance, I think it does a disservice to what’s really going on.”
Going to the movies in 2020 is the story of an industry with about 150,000 people struggling to survive until the norm returns, which is what everyone expects, even if not in the foreseeable future. Small theater owners will benefit a little from the pandemic relief package.
But the effects on businesses are enormous and it may take time to fully understand the impact, although there have been some historical developments and trade-offs. Some innovations have been well received, such as Universal’s historic multi-exhibitor agreement to shorten the theatrical window from 90 days to just 17 days in some cases. Others, such as the Warner Bros. to release all his 2021 movies on HBO Max and in theaters at the same time is not.
It’s no secret that streaming services, whether subscription or on-demand, filled a huge void for movie fans looking for new content. While home options will continue to compete with theaters for consumers’ eyes and money, few believe they are a knockout to theaters. In general, studios don’t try to let go of the theatrical model, even though some priorities have shifted to broadcast.
“I think there’s a bright light at the end of the tunnel,” Orr said. “As vaccines continue to evolve, I am 100% convinced that people in their environment will run back to theaters whenever possible. The model will not disappear ”.
Disney CEO Bob Chapek noted on the company’s recent investor day that they made $ 13 billion at the box office in 2019.
“It’s not easy,” said Chapek.
Last weekend, “Wonder Woman 1984,” which was free to stream on HBO Max, also grossed $ 16.7 million in 2,100 North American theaters. That number would have been a disaster before. Because of the pandemic? It’s a record.