If 2021 was a year for the box office where nothing was normal and nobody knew anything, 2022 was a year where the box office started to once again look like it did before COVID-19 swept the world… but only on the surface.
Last year, each studio had a unique strategy on how to release movies in an unstable market where it was unclear whether any kind of movie could earn the box office riches their pre-pandemic predecessors once made. With “Spider-Man: No Way Home” breaking records in the middle of a global COVID surge, the goal for studios this year was to start figuring out what their strategies for releasing films would be at a time when streaming demand is more popular than ever and the viability of certain genres at the box office were still uncertain.