Things are looking slightly better than expected.
Timed to this year’s CinemaCon, analytics firm Gower Street released an updated forecast for the global box office that predicts revenues will be stronger than originally expected for 2024.
Gower Street is projecting theatrical revenues this year will hit $32.3 billion, up from the $31.5 billion they originally forecast. That is still below the $33.9 billion earned worldwide last year and $10 billion below the box office peak of $42.3 billion hit pre-pandemic.
Gower said the international market, excluding China, will account for most of the gains, with box office projections set to come in $550 million ahead of their original forecast of $16.2 billion. Domestic box office is also expected to come in $200 million above their initial prognosis at around $8.2 billion. China, the only one of the three key markets forecast to show year-on-year growth compared to 2023, is expected to earn $7.9 billion, on par with earlier estimates.
Gower said changes to the release calendar since their first projection, with more titles being added, were the main reason for the increase. They noted that the box office bump will actually be higher calculated in local currency, but the strong U.S. dollar has essentially wiped out “over a third of the gains seen collectively across international markets.”
The new figures will come as little consolation for hard-hit distributors. Even with the improved forecast, Gower expects global box office this year to fall 5 percent from 2023, the first post-pandemic year-on-year drop. The 2024 revised estimate is still 18 percent below the average for the last three pre-pandemic years, 2017-2019.
Gower Street attributes the year-on-year drop to Hollywood’s historic dual labor strikes which resulted in a production slowdown and the delay in the release of several big titles this year.
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