So far this summer, the box office hasn’t seen an opening weekend on the level of 2022 hits like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” or “Jurassic World: Dominion.” But it’s still keeping pace with last summer’s grosses thanks to a larger number of films providing more consistent numbers.
That could be seen this weekend when Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” opened to $60.5 million, closely followed on the charts by “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” which earned a $55.4 million second weekend.
Combined, the two films pushed overall totals for the weekend to an estimated $163.5 million, just 21% down from last weekend when the $120 million opening of “Spider-Verse” and the $41.3 million second weekend of “The Little Mermaid” pushed the overall count to $208 million.
With the opening of Warner Bros.’ “The Flash” and Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental” on Friday, next weekend should see all the films in the top five gross more than $10 million. The last time that happened was on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, when a mix of well-received films like “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “M3GAN” and “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” were on the charts with “Avatar 2” leading the way with $32.8 million.
Ironically, not all of the films in next week’s top five may end up turning a profit despite the strong numbers, at least from theatrical grosses alone. “The Flash” will need to have better audience buzz than recent DC titles like “Black Adam” and “Shazam: Fury of the Gods” in order to turn a profit against its $220 million production budget before marketing. “Elemental,” which carries a $200 million price tag, may join “Lightyear” on the short list of Pixar box office flops.
But the results those and other films bring to their studios shouldn’t overshadow the value they’re bringing to movie theaters, which are looking for a better summer than 2022 which started out with strong turnout from billion-dollar hits but ended with a deep drought in August, according to Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian.
“Given the challenges that the theatrical business has had to deal with over the past three years, having this sort of robust business may be more beneficial in the short-term for theaters than for studios given the price tags, but it will still benefit studios in the long run because these tentpoles are making big strides in helping theaters recover from the pandemic and preserve the theatrical model that studios need to succeed,” Dergarabedian said.
There is a possibility that no film this summer grosses over $1 billion worldwide — “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” has a shot, but it’s not a guarantee — while the overall grosses for the season still finish with a year-over-year increase. In 2022, eight films grossed more than $100 million in North America, while 2023 could see as many as 12 cross that mark with films like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “Dead Reckoning,” “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” still to come.
Having such a variety of films cross that mark ensures that theaters don’t have to count on a single, wildly hyped tentpole blockbuster to carry the load for the month and makes it less likely that the months-long slump seen in 2022 will happen again.
“The sign of a truly healthy box office is one where the No. 1 spot is moving from one movie to the next, because it shows that each new film is appealing enough to bring in enough box office so that the same movie isn’t just carrying all the weight because new offerings aren’t as appealing,” Dergarabedian said.
