2023's Unpredictable Box Office: What's Going On With This Year's Movie Releases?
2023 has been a strange year at the box office with major releases being considered flops and plenty of surprise hits like M3GAN and Cocaine Bear.
2023 has been a year of unpredictability at the box office, with a number of films flopping or underperforming despite having pre-existing audiences or major hype ahead of their releases. Though there have been a few surprise hits among this year’s releases, it only proved how unpredictable things currently are at the box office. Halfway into 2023, the state of theatrical releases at the box office is still confounding studios and movie-goers alike, raising questions about the future of the industry. There are numerous reasons for this box office issue that will hopefully lead to positive change over time rather than further decline.
While there have been some major box office failures in 2023, even with films expected to be huge hits, there have been some that have escaped 2023’s apparent curse. In April, The Super Mario Bros. Movie broke box office records, with the biggest worldwide opening weekend for an animated film, going on to become the highest-grossing film based on a video game. Unfortunately, there are many more 2023 films that performed nowhere near as well at the box office. It would be simple to try and boil the reasoning down to the idea that good movies perform well and bad movies perform poorly, but there’s more to the recent trend.
Box Office Still Hasn't Recovered From The Pandemic
When the pandemic was declared in March 2020, many theaters were either closed or restricted worldwide, which had a big impact on film revenue and box office numbers. There were numerous highly-anticipated 2020 films, such as Fast & Furious 9, No Time to Die, and A Quiet Place: Part II that had to push back their theatrical releases to try and optimize their chances at the box office. Additionally, the pandemic created a new trend of simultaneously releasing films in theaters and on video on demand in an effort to draw in audiences who either couldn’t go to the movie theaters or were still uncomfortable going due to COVID-19.
One of the most notable impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic at the box office was Black Widow, which was delayed three times before finally being released in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access to access the film at home for $30 on July 9, 2021. Black Widow was originally planned to be released on May 1, 2020, but the pandemic forced Marvel to shuffle the release date of multiple Phase 4 films. Though at the end of 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home became the first movie since the pandemic began to make $1 billion at the box office worldwide, the film industry still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic box office numbers.
Audience Viewing Habits Have Changed
While the simultaneous release of films in theaters and on video on demand allowed them to get a chance at bringing in some revenue they might not have if they were only released in theaters, it led to a change in viewing habits. Even three years since the pandemic was declared, most films spend just a short time in theaters before hitting home release, even big-name movies that saw success at the box office like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever moved to streaming just 85 days after release. Streaming has definitely had an impact on 2023’s box office numbers, but it isn’t the only way audience viewing habits have changed recently.
The cost of living in 2023 has raised considerably in recent years, and for many, it’s simply too expensive to see movies in theaters more than just a couple of times a year. IndieWire reported in 2022 that movie ticket prices have increased at least 20 percent since 2019, with the current average price at $11 a ticket. This means many viewers have to be picky with what they’re willing to pay to see, which has led niche films and horrors like M3GAN to be more successful at the box office than some of the mainstream options that viewers can expect to be accessible on streaming relatively quickly.
Higher Budgets Aren't Resulting In Higher Box Office
One of the biggest trends seen at the box office in 2023 is that higher budgets for films aren’t necessarily resulting in higher numbers at the box office. While some of these big-budget films are doing well at the box office, especially when compared to their competitors, the cost it took to make them means they aren’t considered successful. The Little Mermaid (2023) made over $500 million at the box office worldwide off a $250 million budget, and while half a billion typically makes a film a success, The Little Mermaid not hitting the $1 billion Disney remake trend means it’s making far less profit than expected.
Similarly, Fast X went to VOD quickly after a box office disappointment of $704 million made off a $340 million budget. The big budgets are part of what makes these films such big spectacles full of CGI and large big-name casts, but the box office returns suggest that the high costs aren’t worth it. If studios aren’t making more profit based on more investment in budget, it’s reasonable to assume that studios won’t be investing as much and will turn their focus to mid-lower budget releases which might not perform as well at the box office but will be considered more profitable because of their reduced budgets.
Is Decades Of Hollywood Apathy Finally Hitting Home?
There have been many big movies flopping in 2023, but when looking at these films, few can be deemed as injustices. For example, The Little Mermaid is another live-action remake of an animated classic from the Disney Renaissance era which some may see as unnecessary, or at least not a necessity to see in theaters. Fast X is the 11th movie in the Fast & Furious franchise, so viewers may feel like they need to have watched all the previous films or might have dropped interest somewhere along the way. Currently, The Flash is a historic box office bomb, but that can be explained by behind-the-scenes controversy and bad CGI.
2023 has proven that movies need to be truly good for audiences to deem them worth the ticket prices. The films that have turned out to be the most profitable in 2023 have, for the most part, actually deserved to be named box office successes. Audiences have rewarded the original in M3GAN and Cocaine Bear, the fun films made for all ages like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and genuinely very good movies such as Puss In Boots 2. The box office this year has been unpredictable in many ways, but the best indicator of success appears to be quality.
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