Will we continue to see the hot performance of the summer box office as we ease into the fall period? With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice bringing us another $100M+ opening weekend to celebrate and some hot titles (think Transformers One and Speak No Evil) still to come, we may see a September as peppy as the summer that preceded it. Entertainment lawyer from Blake & Wang P.A., Brandon Blake, takes a closer look at the September box office spread.
Better Than 2023?
While the summer 2024 box office performance infused theatrical releases with the vigor that was missing from the start of the year, there’s one thing it didn’t manage to do — beat 2023. While we did see a significant reduction in the box office lag between 2024 and 2023, coming in at just 10% behind the same period last year instead of the once-dire 22% drops we saw predicted at the start of summer, more limited pipelines and some surprising underperformers have still left us in a benchmark deficit of sorts.
If all goes well (a big if in the turbulent box office), we should look at a September that reverses this trend. It’s perfectly possible we could see a $200M increase on last September’s takings.
Four Months to Go Big
If the theatrical box office is to move forward into true recovery territory, the last few months of the year will need to do some heavy lifting to catch up. It should be possible with several popular IPs ahead, free of the formulaic presentation that has turned away theatrical audiences. However, we’ve already seen how fickle these “guaranteed” successes can really be.
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice has already delivered a strong kick-off, topping $100M on its release weekend. If Transformers One manages the same, and it is well-positioned as an animated film, then we may make it. With a few more intriguing releases and strong summer holdovers, this could be the month the domestic box office has been waiting for.
Film and Television 