This month could see multiple blockbusters thriving together or cannibalizing each other depending on how audiences respond
A question looming over movie theaters and the film industry ever since the pandemic began is when the box office would get back to normal. The stacked March lineup with multiple wide-release blockbusters is about as normal as it gets. And that means that the film industry is about to face a true test of its ability to bring in moviegoers.
Over the coming month, theaters will see four major blockbuster sequels — MGM’s “Creed III,” Paramount’s “Scream VI,” Warner Bros./New Line’s “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and Lionsgate’s “John Wick: Chapter 4” — hit screens one weekend after another.
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Click Here Already a subscriber? LoginThen, as the calendar turns to April, the potential hits will keep coming with Paramount’s “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” and Universal/Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which is getting a mid-week release in a sign of Universal’s confidence in the Nintendo animated film.
After a 2022 in which theaters went months at a time without any major releases, this will be a refreshing change for exhibitors. That’s partly why executives like AMC CEO Adam Aron espoused so much optimism for the months ahead in recent quarterly earnings calls.
“We currently estimate that 30 or more movies will gross more than $100 million domestically in 2023. That’s compared with only 18 doing so in the just completed 2022,” Aron told Wall Street analysts Tuesday.
The four aforementioned sequels could be among those $100 million-plus grossers, but that will require each of them finding their own lane among audiences. In pre-pandemic times, that was a likely outcome, but in this post-shutdown marketplace, we have never seen so many films hit theaters in such a short span. It’s unclear whether there’s enough audience interest to support them all or if some of them will be squeezed out.
“This is certainly the busiest March that we have seen in theaters since 2017, which was the first and only March to go over $1 billion. The big question is whether there’s enough market space to allow all of these films to thrive,” said Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “There are going to be some people who prioritize which ones they absolutely must see and which ones they can wait until streaming to watch, so this will be the ultimate stress test of the post-COVID theatrical business.”
March 2023 probably won’t reach anywhere near the record highs of March 2017. That would require the presence of an enormous four-quadrant hit like Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” remake, which made $504 million in 2017 from North America alone.
But Nash Information Systems, operators of the box office database The Numbers, is projecting a monthly domestic total of approximately $800 million in March. While that’s still below what was recorded for the month between 2016-19, it would be a 36% increase from last year’s $588 million March figure, more than half of which was contributed by Warner Bros.’ “The Batman.” It would also push the total for the first quarter of 2023 to $1.87 billion, a near 40% increase year-over-year.
Getting there will require all of this month’s top films to win over fans of their franchise predecessors and get a significant buy-in from casual audiences. At the onset, it looks like “Creed III” will be able to do that with a projected $40 milion opening weekend and a strong 90% Rotten Tomatoes score.
From there, “Scream VI” and “Shazam 2” will have to follow that up with a strong result despite hurdles for each sequel. “Scream VI” will have to win over hardcore fans of the meta-horror series without its star Neve Campbell, who is dropping out of the series due to pay disputes. “Shazam 2,” meanwhile, must overcome the loss of audience goodwill that most of the DC franchise has suffered recently, leading to a reboot under new studio heads James Gunn and Peter Safran that won’t start bearing fruit for another two years.
“John Wick: Chapter 4” on paper should be the strongest of the March lineup as a follow-up to a 2019 film that earned a $171 million domestic total. The big hurdle for it will be the runtime. At 169 minutes, “Chapter 4” is the longest “Wick” film and more than an hour longer than the first “Wick” back in 2014. If the film can’t fill up that runtime with enough compelling action to satisfy fans, the word of mouth may suffer.
The good news for all of these films is their strong differentiation. A boxing drama, a horror flick, a family-friendly superhero spectacle and an R-rated action thriller provide exactly the kind of variety that audiences need.
And that means that we should get a strong test of just how well movie theaters can bring large swaths of the public back in their doors in an era where streaming is more popular than ever. If all of these films punch above their weight class and lead into more strong runs for “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Mario,” that will be a very good omen for a summer that will be just as busy as the month that lies ahead.
Jeremy Fuster
Box Office Reporter • jeremy.fuster@thewrap.com • Twitter: @jeremyfuster