COLUMN: Hollywood's Box Office Woes Are the Long Tail of Last Year's Strikes | by Darren Mooney (Patreon)

It was a rough weekend at the box office. Alex Garland’s reigning champion Civil War managed to fend off challenges from two major new releases, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Abigail and Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. However, this was arguably less a vote of support for Garland’s provocative indie blockbuster than a reflection of an industry in crisis.

It has been a rough month at the global box office. As of last week, it was reported that the total domestic box office to date was down 17% from the same time last year. The results from this weekend alone widened the gap to 20%. This underperformance is part of a larger trend. The second weekend in February represented the worst weekend at the American box office in 14 months, which makes it the worst since the end of the pandemic.

To be fair, that underperformance was driven in part by the Super Bowl, which always has an impact on theatrical admissions in the United States. There is also an argument that the picture is a bit rosier globally. Gower Street Analytics predicts a more modest decline of 3% year-on-year at the global box office from 2023 to 2024. However, even this more manageable shrinkage is still a disappointment. The theatrical industry was actually in the process of recovery, and that upswing has drawn to a halt.

The total domestic box office for April 2023 was approximately $901.3m. Heading into the summer, analysts were optimistic that the industry could recover the ground lost during the pandemic. Audiences were demonstrably eager to return to theatres. “We’re actually catching up with 2019 levels,” boasted Paul Dergarabedian in April 2023, a senior media analyst at the company Comscore. “Remember: 2019 was no slouch. It was the second-highest box office year with $11.4 billion.”

There is a tendency to blame the movies for low attendance. It’s certainly true that some of the year’s movies have underperformed. Earlier in April, despite strong reviews, Dev Patel’s Monkey Man and Arkasha Stevenson’s The First Omen didn’t quite hit at the box office. This weekend, Abigail was estimated to open in the $12m to $15m range, buoyed by a warm critical response, but the R-rated horror had to settle for a more modest $10.2m debut.

There is an argument that there are too many horror movies, that audiences are being inundated with schlock and their interest has been exhausted. There is a certain logic to that argument, particularly when the movies are considered on their own merits. After all, Immaculate came out a few weeks before The First Omen, built around a remarkably similar premise with a bigger star and a bolder take on the material. It’s entirely possible Immaculate deflated The First Omen’s box office.

However, this argument misses the forest for the trees. There is a very simple reason why it might appear – particularly to a casual observer – that the market place has been dominated by cheap horror movies. That is because there are fewer movies being released in general, and the level of horror has remained somewhat consistent. After all, April 2023 saw the release of Renfield, Beau is Afraid, The Pope’s Exorcist, and Evil Dead Rise. There were just other movies released as well.

As a rule, the key to getting audiences to come to cinemas is to release movies that they want to see. Call it the Field of Dreams rule: “If you screen it, they will come.” If there’s nothing to see, audiences aren’t going to show up. “To have a truly successful filmed entertainment industry, a variety of movies that appeal to moviegoers is critical,” argued Michael O’Leary, the head of the National Association of Theater Owners, at CinemaCon in early April.

Between January and April 2023, there 44 wide theatrical releases. In the same period in 2024, there were only 31 wide theatrical releases. It’s no surprise that the box office is down. Indeed, it’s a surprise that the box office has held as well as it has, a testament to the breakout success of Dune: Part Two and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. It is somewhat reassuring that a blockbuster as esoteric as Dune: Part Two could play as well as it has.

The reason that these months are barren is very obvious. It’s a consequence of the extended strikes that ran through the second half of 2023, with the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild fighting for better terms from the studios. Those strikes brought work stoppages, making production and release impossible for larger film and television projects. They led to delays in finishing films and shows, which led to delays in releasing film and television.

Without the strikes, the first four months of 2024 would have looked very different. It’s worth imagining what this alternate movie landscape might have looked like, had the studios been in a position to deliver those projects to theatres in a timely manner. January and February would have been somewhat similar, with the biggest question mark being the Dirty Dancing sequel that was intended to open on February 9th. Could that have drawn in older audiences?

However, March and April would have been very different, starting with the twin release of The Fall Guy and Pixar’s Elio on March 1st. The Fall Guy garnered great reviews at SXSW, and Gosling and Blunt were in the height of Academy Awards season where they were both nominated as supporting performers in the two halves of the phenomenon known as Barbenheimer. Animated films tend to do pretty well. Even Pixar’s underperforming Elemental eked its way to box office success.

The following week, A Quiet Place: Day One seems like it could have been a solid earner for Paramount, based on the previous entries in the series. The originally-planned release of Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White just two weeks later seems like a riskier proposition. Based on the box office performance of The Little Mermaid, it seems like the shine had come off that particular rose. However, The Little Mermaid was a film arguably sunk by its own budget.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that some of these projects would have had to move, regardless of the strikes. It seems highly unlikely, for example, that Sony was ever going to be able to get Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse into cinemas for March 29th. Indeed, given what has subsequently been reported about the production of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, it is probably for the best that the animation team have been given more time to work on the follow-up.

There is, similarly, a question mark hanging over the animated The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. Although there has yet to be any footage screened from the film, it was initially planned to open April 12th. Of course, there’s some indication that Amazon’s efforts to exploit the Lord of the Rings brand with Rings of Power didn’t really pay off, but a theatrically distributed movie is a different proposition. The film would certainly have brought some blockbuster power to April.

Cinemas would also be looking forward to more immediate hits. While May will see the release of The Fall Guy, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and Furiosa, the month was originally supposed to start with a big Marvel Studios release. Originally, the film that would become Captain America: Brave New World was supposed to open May 3rd. When that became unviable, Deadpool 3 was moved into that prime piece of release real estate, signaling the proper start of summer.

While some of these movies would likely have been moved regardless of the strike, and while some would undoubtedly have underperformed, it really does feel like the past couple of months would have been a lot more vibrant and exciting. Indeed, it’s possible to imagine some of those March movies – if they were good enough – carrying over into April and holding audiences. This is the context for the weeks and weeks of reporting of underwhelming box office results.

It's important to be clear about this: this is the long tail of devastating strikes that crippled the entertainment industry. Those strikes are entirely the result of studio greed. The studios could easily have made the concessions that they eventually made to the writers and actors, which were perfectly reasonable, and business could have resumed with only minimal disruption. Instead, attempting to literally starve the workers into submission, the studios let the strike drag on and the wound deepen.

These empty cinemas, and these underwhelming box office returns, are a monument to that corporate greed. They are also a reminder that the damage caused by studio intransigence extends far beyond the five months of the strike itself. The recovery of the theatrical distribution model has been set back by more than a year, coming in the aftermath of a devastating global pandemic that shook the entire industry to its core. It really does feel like the studios are suicidal.

The greed of the studio executives cost Hollywood millions upon millions of dollars. The work stoppages took that money from the pockets of working craftspeople. The delays to the release pipeline are taking that money from an ailing theatre industry. Meanwhile, the executives continue to profit. Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav received $50m for his work in 2023. Bob Iger, who insisted the writers and actors were “not realistic” in their demands, earned over $31m.

The strike may be over, but the industry will be living with it for a long time.