When it came to the movies that popped in multiplexes, 2024 was all about the sequels.
Whether audiences were returning for more Deadpool, Gru or Godzilla, recognizable properties were the big attraction at cinemas. Sequels — such as “Inside Out 2,” “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Despicable Me 4” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” — accounted for nine of the top 10 slots in terms of the year’s highest-grossing worldwide releases. And “Wicked,” the only non-franchise film to crack that elite group, couldn’t have been more familiar; the musical serves as an unofficial prequel to “The Wizard of Oz” and was adapted from a massively popular Broadway show that’s been consistently drawing crowds for two decades. This year’s reliance on follow-ups, spinoffs and offshoots stands in stark contrast to 2023 when the three biggest blockbusters, “Barbie,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Oppenheimer,” all arrived without a roman numeral in the title.
What played out was often an IP arms race between three major studios, with Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. responsible for nearly all of 2024’s top-earning tentpoles. While those companies were awarded our highest marks for their performance, the overall movie theater industry doesn’t have as much cause for celebration. Ticket sales are 4.8% behind 2023 — which doesn’t seem that bad until you consider at least a quarter of that year was hurt by the actors and writers strikes — and 23% behind 2019, according to Comscore. Clearly, the theatrical business has yet to fully rebound from COVID and last year’s work stoppage.
As for cinema operators, there weren’t enough new movies to hawk on their marquees — though streamers did help fill in the gap. Hollywood newcomers like Apple and Amazon started to release more movies in theaters as a way to bring attention to their streaming services. Though it provided a few more titles for theaters to book, these tech giants have yet to demonstrate they can consistently produce movies that people will pay to watch on the big screen.
Before 2024 comes to a close, Variety assessed how the major studios fared at the global box office over the past 12 months.
Disney
Grade: AHighs: “Inside Out 2” ($1.69 billion), “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($1.33 billion), “Moana 2” ($717 million to date)Lows: “The First Omen” ($53 million), “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” ($397 million)Takeaways: The bigger they are, the harder they fall… the faster they rise again? After a rare, terrible year in 2023, Disney enjoyed a considerable box office rebound with not just one but three expected billion-dollar blockbusters. (“Moana 2” is projected to cross the billion-dollar mark in January.) No other studios fielded a single $1 billion release in 2024. “Inside Out 2” restored Pixar’s box office rut, “Deadpool & Wolverine” proved the squeaky-clean House of Mouse can pull off an R rating… if they pull in every Spandexed comic book star around, and “Moana 2” solidified the Polynesian-set animated adventure as a major new franchise — which is good news for the live-action reboot, starring Dwayne Johnson as the tattooed demigod Maui, in 2026 and the inevitable “Moana 3.” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is the lowest grossing of the reboot franchise and “The First Omen” may be the last (at least theatrically speaking) in the occult-tilted thriller series, but potential losses on either are minor. It took a minute, but sparkle has returned to the Magic Kingdom.
Paramount
Grade: BHighs: “Mean Girls” ($104 million), “A Quiet Place: Day One” ($261 million), “Smile 2” ($137 million), “Bob Marley: One Love” ($180 million)Lows: “IF” ($190 million), “Transformers One” ($128 million) Takeaways: Despite a lot of corporate drama involving the sale of its parent company to Skydance’s David Ellison, Paramount managed to string together a solid, if unspectacular, series of singles and doubles. What it didn’t field was a massive, fences-clearing hit on the scale of a “Top Gun: Maverick.” “Gladiator II” came closest, earning just over $400 million, but that number comes with an asterisk given its hefty $250 million price tag and the tens of millions spent marketing the historical epic. Blame the actors strike for shutting down production and adding to the budget, but that’s not a great result given the time and treasure that was expended on all that Colosseum carnage. However, Paramount looks like it will close out 2024 on a high note, as “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” races into theaters, propelled by strong tracking which has it pegged to be a holiday hit. The studio also produced a number of relatively low-cost winners, such as “Mean Girls” ($104 million on a $36 million budget) and “Smile 2” ($137 million on a $28 million budget) that boast enviable profit margins, while finding a way to extend the “Quiet Place” franchise sans Emily Blunt. Elsewhere: “If: The Return” ain’t happening and “Transformers One” probably won’t lead to “Transformers Two.”
Sony
Grade: BHighs: “The Garfield Movie” ($257 million), “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” ($404 million), “It Ends With Us” ($350 million), “Venom: The Last Dance” ($468 million)Lows: “Madame Web” ($100 million), “Harold and the Purple Crayon” ($32 million), “Saturday Night” ($9.7 million), “Kraven the Hunter” ($26 million to date)Takeaways: Maybe it’s time to leave the Marvel characters who aren’t Spider-Man in the rearview. “Madame Web” and “Kraven the Hunter” were embarrassing wipeouts, joining the ignominious company of 2022’s “Morbius.” And though “Venom” is officially a critic-proof, commercially successful trilogy, “The Last Dance” didn’t hit the heights of its predecessors. “Saturday Night,” a dramatic retelling of “SNL’s” origins, failed to find an audience while its “Harold and the Purple Crayon” adaptation with Zachary Levi would have been better served staying in the box. Sony didn’t score any home runs, but some things did pay off. Bad Boys are still good for ticket sales, and “It Ends With Us” became the sleeper hit of the summer. A sequel should be a no-brainer. So, it’s too bad an apparent feud between stars Justin Baldoni (who directed and holds cinematic rights to the property) and Blake Lively has left any future plans for the literary sensation looking precarious. Not everything gets the happy ending it deserves.
Universal
Grade: A-Highs: “Despicable Me 4” ($969 million), “Twisters” ($370 million), “Kung Fu Panda 4” ($547 million), “The Wild Robot” ($321 million), “Wicked: Part One” ($525 million to date)Lows: “The Fall Guy” ($181 million), “Abigail” ($42 million) Takeaways: Universal pulled off the seemingly impossible: Making musicals seem cool to moviegoers. “Wicked” could have been the latest in a string of failed Broadway-to-screen adaptations, but director Jon M. Chu and stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande bucked the odds and propelled the big-budget film into the cultural zeitgeist — thanks in part to meticulously crafted marketing bonanza and the most meme’d press tour since Lady Gaga tour de force for “House of Gucci.” Universal needs audiences to keep buying into the magic of Oz since “Wicked: For Good” arrives in November 2025. On the animation front, Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4” and DreamWorks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 4” and “The Wild Robot” helped cement Universal as the only true rival to Disney’s family entertainment empires, Pixar and Disney Animation. “The Fall Guy,” a well-reviewed, $130 million action comedy with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, was the studio’s only major blunder. It lost roughly $50 million in its theatrical run despite grossing $181 million globally, signaling that if studios want to keep making funny films for theaters (and they should!), budgets need to be kept under a certain price point. If “Abigail,” a thriller about Dracula’s daughter, doesn’t ring a bell, don’t worry — it cost under $30 million so losses were less painful than the Count’s bite.
Warner Bros.
Grade: B+Highs: “Dune: Part Two” ($714 million), “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” ($571 million), “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” ($451 million)Lows: “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” ($173 million), “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1” ($38 million), “Joker: Folie a Deux” ($206 million)Takeaways: It’s been a chaotic few years for Warner Bros., which has suffered through two new parent companies (first there was the ignoble AT&T era, then the drama-filled Discovery merger) and a lot of turnover at the top of the studio. That said, the studio did field some blockbusters, with “Dune: Part Two” nearly doubling the box office results of its predecessor and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” proving that people will show up to watch primordial beasts duke it out no matter what critics think. Nearly forty years after the first “Beetlejuice” debuted, Warner Bros. confirmed there’s still life left in the vulgar poltergeist, with the sequel scoring at the box office. Yet followups to more recent hits like “Joker” and “Mad Max: Fury Road” resulted in costly flops, with “Folie a Deux” suffering scathing reviews in addition to anemic ticket sales and “Furiosa” demonstrating that it probably wasn’t a good idea to revisit the Wasteland without Charlize Theron. “Horizon” was an even bigger bomb, but the studio was a distributor-for-hire on that one, so it actually stands to make money even as Kevin Costner loses his shirt and Stetson.
Amazon MGM
Grade: CHighs: “The Beekeeper” ($152 million), “Blink Twice” ($46 million)Lows: “Challengers” ($96 million), “Red One” ($150 million), “My Old Ass” ($5.7 million)Takeaways: “The Beekeeper,” a $40 million action thriller starring Jason Statham, is exactly the sweet spot the tech giant should be prioritizing as it finds its footing in the movie business. It didn’t cost a whole lot, so the film didn’t require a ton to turn a profit. And it’s the kind of mid-budget movie that traditional studios mostly stopped making but audiences clearly still want to watch on the big screen. Ditto “Challengers,” a smart and sexy crowd-pleaser set in the competitive tennis world. But even with Zendaya on board, Amazon MGM can’t spend $55 million on an R-rated drama with an arthouse sheen and expect to get out of the red in this day and age. All of this is to say nothing of “Red One,” Dwayne Johnson’s Christmas action extravaganza that carries a gargantuan $250 million budget. No matter how the studio wants to spin it (or how much adjacent Krampus-themed merch is sold), “Red One” is one of the biggest big screen flops of the year. If Amazon MGM wants to remain in the theatrical game (and, yes, rival studios and movie theaters want that as well), the studio needs to start getting realistic about spending habits. Bah humbug, indeed.
Apple
Grade: DHighs: Pivoting “Wolfs” to streaming to avoid box office scrutinyLows: “Argylle” ($96 million), “Fly Me to the Moon” ($42 million)Takeaways: Apple is very good at making phones and computers. Movies? Not so much. The tech giant spent lavishly on starry projects like “Argylle” (featuring Henry Cavill, Samuel L. Jackson, John Cena and a lot of A-listers looking to have their backend bought out) and “Fly Me to the Moon” (where Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum met cute at NASA but would have fared better attracting audiences on Mars). But it had little to show after signing those big checks. Then there was “Wolfs,” which the studio abruptly shifted to streaming after initially planning to give it a robust theatrical run. The suspicion was that Apple made the move after looking at some scary tracking. But instead of saving face, the studio announced that it was planning to make a sequel without getting buy-in from writer and director Jon Watts. When he broke his silence about the aborted follow-up and shared his anger over the streaming pivot, it set off a fresh wave of bad headlines. It’s all contributed to an image of a studio that is stumbling around, vainly searching for a winning strategy. Next year brings Brad Pitt in “F1,” a racing drama that is directed by “Top Gun: Maverick’s” Joseph Kosinski, which could turn around Apple’s box office fortunes. If not, tough questions will be asked about what exactly Apple has to show for its costly Hollywood experiment.
Lionsgate
Grade: DHighs: “Unsung Hero” ($21 million), “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” ($32 million) Lows: “Borderlands” ($32 million), “The Crow” ($23.7 million), “1992” ($2.9 million), “Never Let Go” ($16.2 million), “The Killer’s Game” ($5.9 million), “Megalopolis” ($11.2 million) and “White Bird” ($6.8 million)Takeaways: What a disaster! Lionsgate suffered one humiliation after another, as “Boderlands,” “The Crow,” “Never Let Go,” and basically anything it released over the past few months collapsed at the box office. The movies seemed to be trying to top each other in cataclysmic opening weekend grosses, resulting in an unprecedented losing streak of seven consecutive flops. In the company’s most recent earnings call, CEO Jon Feltheimer was blunt about Lionsgate’s film troubles, calling the results “disappointing” and saying that in the case of “Borderlands,” a pricey video game adaptation led by Cate Blanchett, “nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong.” Don’t stop there, Jon. That assessment also applies to Lionsgate’s catastrophic year.
