By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
Global cinema box office revenues have bounced back by 27% over 2021, but the $26 billion tally is still far short of pre-pandemic levels.
Gower Street Analytics released its final estimate for global box office returns, up to Dec. 31, 2022. The result of $25.9 billion is not only a major drop from pre-pandemic revenues, but also notably lower than its original estimate of $33 billion, which it issued in 2021.
Despite the uplift from major films like Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: Way of Water, and Spider-Man: No Way Home (released Dec. 17, 2021), Gower Street estimates 2022 revenues are roughly 25% lower than the 2017-2019 average.
Those numbers reflect a loss of $14 billion in gross revenue, as compared to expectations had COVID-19 not disrupted the industry.
But there are nuggets of good news sprinkled through the data.
For one thing, the slumbering North American market has arisen. In 2020 and 2021, China moved into first place globally for film revenue as Canada and the United States suffered through two years of lockdowns and restrictions.
This year, the North American market rang in at $7.5 billion (according to Comscore Movies), putting it ahead of China for the first time since 2019. That is also a 65% increase in revenue over 2021 for the North American market.
BOX OFFICE SAGS IN CHINA AS COVID-19 RETURNS
China, on the other hand, has seen its box office revenues dwindling. Ironically, while the US and Canada took their economic lumps earlier, locking down hard until vaccination programs could inoculate most of the population, China opted for a flawed vaccination regime, and instead relied on widespread and extremely unpopular lockdowns in 2021-22.
As a result, China is calculated to have concluded the year at approximately $4.33 billion, or some 36% behind 2021.
The 2022 China figure was also down by 49% compared to the country’s pre-pandemic three-year average. Various film industry analysts have reported that 2022 was the lowest annual total in China for 11 years.
But the news was significantly better for other international markets, giving the industry some hope that once China recovers from its most recent bout with the COVID-19 virus, global box office figures could return to pre-pandemic levels.
INTERNATIONAL MARKETS SOAR IN 2022
Outside of China and North America, the global market was estimated to have generated $14.1 billion in 2022, which is a robust 55% increase over 2021, although still 29% lower than the 2017-2019 average.
Other global markets broke down as follows:
- Europe, Middle East and Africa: $7.1 billion, 52% above 2021.
- Asia Pacific: $5.2 billion, 49% higher than 2021.
- Latin America: $1.8 billion, 87% higher than 2021.
- Russia was the weakest market tracked by Gower Street this year, as revenues actually fell by 43% compared to 2021, due to the economic decline caused by the War in Ukraine.
Another major change from 2021 was that Hollywood and/or generally Western films once more dominated the charts.
In 2021 as China remained relatively open, the Chinese films The Battle at Lake Changjin and Hi Mom placed second and third respectively in terms of gross worldwide revenue, while Spiderman: No Way Home placed first.
In 2022, however, Hollywood blockbusters took the top eight positions in the list of top-grossing films, while the only Chinese films to break into the Top 10 were Water Gate Bridge and Moon Man, which came in tenth and earned $626.5 million.
Avatar: Way of Water Blows Through $2 Billion Mark in Global Box Office
As well, all of the other films in the Top 20 were either from Hollywood or the UK, other than Too Cool to Kill, a Chinese comedy that came in at number 20.
- Avatar: The Way of Water $2,026,675,670
2. Top Gun: Maverick $1,488,732,821
3. Jurassic World: Dominion $1,001,978,080
4. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness $955,775,804
5. Minions: The Rise of Gru $939,628,210
6. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever $840,131,107
7. The Batman $770,945,583
8. Thor: Love and Thunde $760,928,081
9 Water Gate Bridge $626,571,697
10. Moon Man $460,237,662
11. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore $406,950,844
12. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 $402,656,846
13. Uncharted $401,748,820
14. Black Adam $392,952,111
15. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish $297,770,825
16. Elvis $287,340,048
17. The Bad Guys $250,162,278
18. Bullet Train $239,268,602
19. Lightyear $226,425,420
20. Too Cool to Kill $217,254,604
WELL KNOWN FRANCHISE FILMS DOMINATE BOX OFFICE IN 2022
Another trend at the box office this year was that, even more than usual, the major franchise films dominated ticket sales. Those include the latest installments for Avatar, Top Gun and Jurassic Park sequels, as well as three films from Marvel in the top 10, The Batman at number seven, and the latest Minions film at fifth. Notably, Water Gate Bridge was also a sequel, as the follow up to the Chinese war epic The Battle at Lake Changjin.
In the entire top 10 film list, only the Chinese film Moon Man was not a sequel.
The trend continues into the full Top 20 list, including sequels for the franchises Fantastic Beasts, Sonic the Hedgehog, Black Adam from the DC Universe series, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish from the Shrek franchise, and Lightyear from The Toy Story franchise.
GOWER PREDICTS ANOTHER SUB-PAR YEAR FOR FILM IN 2023
It would be great to report that box office revenues will bounce back to pre-COVID levels this year, but that is not likely.
Gower Street is predicting global box office will only reach $29 billion in 2023. That’s a $3 billion gain over 2022, but still well short of pre-COVID numbers.
There are a number of reasons for that, which TLL has explored before in our economic analyses.
One of the reasons we’ve already mentioned is the sagging Chinese box office, which Gower predicts will end the year $3 billion lower than 2021. Unfortunately, China will continue to be plagued by COVID-19 for months to come, thanks to its ineffective vaccination program.
However, the War in Ukraine is also spreading a damp blanket of woe over the world economy, particularly in Europe and Russia. In addition, the US studios have boycotted the Russian market, meaning that country’s box office will dramatically underperform this year.
Other markets will continue to be held back by inflation and historically low consumer confidence figures, which will combine with the rise of streaming to put additional pressure on ticket sales. Thanks to streaming, cutting back on going to the movies just isn’t as painful as it would have been prior to 2020.
All that said, Gower’s predictions for the global box office still represents a further 12% gain in revenues; smaller than the 21% in 2022, but still a decent increase as cinema slowly regains its feet. At this rate it will take until at least 2024, and perhaps longer, for theaters to attain their pre-pandemic revenues, and that’s assuming no more negative drags on the economy.
To put the numbers in perspective, Gower’s prediction of $29 billion for 2023 is still 27% lower than the average of the last three pandemic years.
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