Will the Box Office Ever Return to Pre-Pandemic Levels?

Despite the global success of Disney's "Inside Out 2", which made $1.7 billion at the box office worldwide to become one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, 2024 will go down as another disappointing year at the box office. According to projections from industry tracker The Numbers, 2024 will likely fail to match last year's domestic box office haul, not to mention returning anywhere near pre-pandemic levels. At a projected total of $8.5 billion, the North American box office will fall 24 percent short of its 2019 performance on a nominal basis and more than 35 percent short when adjusting for ticket price inflation. 

This is due to a combination of factors, ranging from the 2023 Hollywood writers strike, which created a scarcity of blockbuster releases, to economic pressures caused by inflation and changing consumer habits. While the first two factors will eventually recede, consumer habits have changed for good and movie theaters and studios will have to find new ways to attract consumers, who are obviously enjoying to consume most video content in their own home, whenever they please.

Movie theaters and the film industry were hit incredibly hard by the coronavirus pandemic, as screens went dark in most parts of the world in March 2020, when strict social distancing measures were implemented to contain the virus. Box office earnings vanished practically overnight, and film studios were forced to push back movie releases to later in the year, hoping that things would be back to normal by then. Unfortunately, things never went back to normal, as Covid came and went in waves and it took a long time for people to be comfortable enough to return to movie theaters, even after vaccinations had become widely available. 

Desperate to generate new revenue streams, studios even did the previously unthinkable in 2021 and started releasing films on streaming services simultaneous to the theatrical release. While embracing streaming as an alternative means of distribution during these special times seemed like a shrewd move, it is proving difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. Consumers have a way of quickly getting used to new realities, and while many people have sorely missed the moviegoing experience, others have long called for the end of theatrical release windows.