5 movies that helped save the box office in 2024

It’s been a wild few years at the box office. The 2020 shutdowns put theaters and Hollywood in a terrible position, and the recovery has been slower than expected. but 2023 offered hope, with the domestic box office reaching $9 billionWhich brings us closer to normal conditions before the pandemic. Then the SAG and WGA strikes happened, completely destroying the release calendar for the first half of 2024. For this reason, theaters were once again forced to weather a brutal storm.

The first half of 2024 was close to disaster. Not only did this leave us without any blockbuster releases for months on end, but once they started appearing, many of them proved to be disappointing (we’re talking films like “The Fall Guy” and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”). Everything seemed pretty bleak for a while, though The domestic box office is lagging more than 20% from last year’s total heading into summer.

Fortunately, things have rebounded better than we’d hoped, with blockbusters like Deadpool & Wolverine, Despicable Me 4, Dune: Part Two, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, among others, helping to fill the gap. More importantly, many films helped fill the void and keep theaters afloat during serious slack periods in the calendar. These films helped the industry avoid what I would call a crisis.

As 2024 comes to a close, it’s time to highlight some of the films that actually helped theaters keep the lights on this year.

Even in good years, it’s difficult to get a big movie released in January. Sometimes you have something like this Liam Neeson’s action movie ‘Taken’ could be a surprise hit. Overall, this is often a bad month for the industry. In this case, expectations were particularly low this year given that the strikes had just ended and Hollywood left the first part of 2024 largely barren. Enter David Ayer’s “The Beekeeper,” a ridiculous action film starring Jason Statham that was a hit beyond anyone’s expectations.

The combination of Statham’s kicking and the lack of direct competition benefited this film greatly. The audience also supported the truly ridiculous concept of a retired super secret agent becoming a literal beekeeper only to be called back into action to “protect the hive” as it were. Paramount also had the musical “Mean Girls” in theaters around this time, and that film was a huge hit in theaters ($104.7 million worldwide), especially since the original plan was for the film to go straight to Paramount+ .

“The Beekeeper” thrived alongside the competition, grossing a truly surprising $152.7 million worldwide. This was David Ayer’s first theatrical work since Suicide Squad. It had a modest budget of $40 million. It was a home run for Amazon and MGM. “Mean Girls” always seemed like it had positive potential given how beloved the original was. “The Beekeeper” was an original film that helped ensure it wasn’t just a mediocre film topping the box office during the month of January.

That’s the key here. If we can’t get one big hit, getting two medium-sized hits can help make up the difference. “The Beekeeper” was another much-needed hit.

It may seem silly to highlight the year’s highest-grossing film on this list, but some context is needed when we discuss the truly astonishing success of “Inside Out 2.” If it had been five years ago, a Pixar sequel that grossed over $1 billion worldwide wouldn’t have been news. That’s how hard it was crushed by Disney and Pixar at one point. But the pandemic changed all that, and things were highly uncertain for a few years. Especially after the “Lightyear” bombing of 2022.

Since Disney sent many Pixar originals, including “Luca” and “Soul,” directly to Disney+, there wasn’t a great deal of certainty that all Pixar films would be given theatrical releases going forward. Furthermore, can a new Pixar film do what these films did in their heyday? The answer is a resounding yes. Building on the success of last year’s “Elemental,” “Inside Out 2” shattered all expectations with a record-breaking opening on its way to becoming a… The biggest animated film of all time, surpassing 2016’s Frozen II and The Lion King. Frankly, we would have been talking about 2024’s box office, in general, more harshly if this movie hadn’t performed the way it did.

With $1.69 billion in revenue, Inside Out 2 is the biggest movie of 2024 ever. What’s more, it came in June after a disastrous start to the summer, with films like… “The Fall Guy” and “Furiosa” did not live up to expectations. Things felt dire. This then gave the sequel a huge boost to life at its box office, while also renewing our collective hopes that Pixar would remain a pillar of stunning animated cinema – built for the big screen – for years to come. Pixar for the win, now more than ever.

There will always be giant movies like Deadpool & Wolverine, a giant $1.3 billion success story. Even if superhero movies disappear for a while, some form of populist blockbuster will take their place. What matters is that the industry as a whole should try to build counter programming around those blockbusters so that we have a strong, inclusive and healthy theatrical market. And no film proves this better than 2024’s “It Ends With Us.”

This film starred Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni in a doomed romance, was heavily targeted at women, and was based on a very popular book of the same name. Sony Pictures ended with a blow, A movie that actually knocked “Deadpool & Wolverine” off the top spot at the box officeEven if only for a short time. It resonated with its target audience in a bigger way than expected, and was a late-summer surprise that helped end the season on a high note, rather than letting it conclude on a whimper after some big-budget successes had run their course.

like Movies like “Borderlands” caught on in amazing fashionthis mid-budget love story was there to help pick up the slack. Sony is credited with somehow making this film on a $25 million budget, which means it was probably the most profitable film of the year, given its $350 million global gross. It’s the kind of success that Hollywood could learn a lesson or two from. A popular book turned popular movie targeting an often overlooked demographic? What a concept.

Horror has been the biggest box office savior during the pandemic era. Films like “The Black Phone,” “M3GAN” and even this year’s “Longlegs” were there to help provide a series of reliable hits that could be produced relatively cheaply so everyone wins. But “Terrifier 3” is on a whole other level. We’re talking about a very gory, underrated Christmas movie that ranks as one of the biggest horror films of 2024, which really helped keep October going.

In 2022, “Terrifier 2” grossed $15 million worldwide and was a true surprise hit. So, yes, all eyes were on director Damien Leone’s upcoming sequel. What no one expected was that the audience for Art the Clown and his brand of carnage would grow exponentially over the past couple of years. So much so that “Terrifier 3” managed to top the charts at the domestic box office on its first weekend of release, ranking as one of the biggest surprises in box office history.

All told, the relentlessly gory Cineverse and Bloody Disgusting has grossed $89 million worldwide and counting. With the upcoming re-release, the film could reach $100 million before all is said and done. I’m willing to call it the most unlikely $100 million hit in history when/if it happens. These many millions of dollars helped serve as a bright spot in what had been a slow start to the fall season. This was a much needed hit as well as a surprise.

No one expected Damian Leone’s latest entry in the Art the Clown saga to be such a hit. Here we are with that. We thank you for your service.

It’s easy to get caught when you list the Red One as any kind of savior. It’s really a holdover from the streaming wars past, where Amazon paid an indecent amount of money to have The Rock star in a big Christmas action movie. It’s an irresponsibly expensive film. It won’t even come close to making back its budget in its theatrical run. It’s also been an absolute godsend for theaters that helped fill an important empty spot on the calendar before “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” were double successes at the box officefollowed directly by “Moana 2”. This was the unsung hero of all the unsung heroes of 2024, in my view.

“Red One” was not produced with a theatrical release in mind. When it became too expensive, Amazon decided to try it on the big screen. This was a wise decision, as the release ended up boosting the film’s profile before its debut on Prime Video. It also helped theaters stay afloat after “Venom: The Last Dance” ran out of gas and before Thanksgiving brought greener pastures.

Here’s the thing: Netflix makes giant movies all the time and either throws them straight to streaming or gives them a mostly small theatrical release to qualify for awards. Amazon was never going to profit from this movie in theaters. But do you know who really benefits? Theater owners who took in $165 million worth (and counting) in dry-time ticket sales. The Red One bet may not be a success, but it can’t be called a flop either Given the individual issuance strategy and how it is financed. Whatever the case, without this movie, theaters would have had to endure a truly terrible couple of weeks. This is money that really matters in the grand scheme of things.

Am I for spending over $200 million on a movie like this? Of course not. This is something I oppose all the time. Would I rather see those movies in theaters than rot on streaming when theaters could benefit from the traffic they bring? Without question.