This Is What A Slow Theatrical Recovery Looks Like

Yes, Lightyear earned just $50.5 million in its disappointing Fri-Sun domestic debut, which along with an $83 million global cume seems to put the $200 million Toy Story spin-off/relaunch/etc. on the path to around $300 million global. If it legs out here and abroad, well, good. Even if the worst happens, and honestly this feels like Solo: A Star Wars Story all over again, an animated film still opened with $50 million last weekend. It marked the first time since June of 2013 that (alongside Jurassic World Dominion and Top Gun: Maverick) we’ve had three films all earning over $40 million. This weekend sees the release of Elvis and The Black Phone. It’s all but certain that we’ll have four films earning at least $20 million. We could see five such films for the first time since July of 2016. This is what a theatrical recovery looks like.

A return to something approximating normalcy will not be a world where every tentpole connects and every “regular” movie pulls in decent grosses alongside the tentpoles. Competition from streaming, the convenience of at-home viewing and a studio push toward VOD and shorter theatrical windows had already created a new normal where a much larger percentage of domestic moviegoers spent more of their money a much smaller number of “event movies.” In 2018, the top seven movies (Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Incredibles 2, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Aquaman, Deadpool 2 and The Grinch) accounted for $3 billion, or 26% of the $11.6 billion-sized pie. And the acclaimed Game Night was seen as borderline miraculous for passing $100 million even as five years earlier the mediocre We’re the Millers could crack $275 million without breaking a sweat. Studio programmers struggled before Covid, and they will after Covid.

What we’ve seen since May of 2021, when A Quiet Place part II still earned about as much ($160 million domestic from a $57 million Fri-Mon debut and $297 million worldwide) as it might have in March of 2020, the tentpoles that would have succeeded in normal times have mostly succeeded in 2021 and 2022. No Time to Die earned $774 million global, The Batman cracked $770 million, Doctor Strange 2 cleared $945 million and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is nearing $400 million. Several biggies, like Free Guy ($330 million), Godzilla Vs. Kong ($469 million), Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.9 billion), Uncharted ($400 million), Everything Everywhere All at Once ($84 million) and Top Gun: Maverick ($900 million-and-counting) have overperformed pre-Covid expectations. Even Warner Bros.’ tentpole misses (The Matrix Resurrections, The Suicide Squad and Space Jam: A New Legacy) were commercial question marks before “Project Popcorn.”

To be fair, Tom and Jerry and Godzilla Vs. Kong essentially saved movie theaters and Dune overperformed with $400 million worldwide. Disney’s Lightyear was also a question mark before Covid. It was a cynical IP exploitation, and the constant attempts to overexplain what was just “a Pixar sci-fi actioner featuring Buzz Lightyear” created years of (somewhat performative) confusion among the perpetually online. Sure, I would argue that Disney’s decision to send Soul, Luca and Turning Red to Disney+ made Lightyear seem less theater-worthy, but Disney didn’t have to send Luca (in June of 2020) and Turning Red (in April of 2021) to streaming. That was a *choice* intended to goose Disney’s stock at a time when Wall Street was drinking the “streaming is everything” Kool-Aid, just as it was a choice to treat Encanto’s theatrical release as a glorified sneak preview for the Disney+ debut.

A big reason theatrical doesn’t quite feel “back and better than ever” is because of the sheer lack of theatrical releases being offered on the regular. Spider-Man: No Way Home coasted through January and early February thanks to no Oscar season breakouts (part of the “regular movies are still struggling” issue) and a near-total lack of comparative tentpole competition. Sony moved Jared Leto’s commercially dicey Morbius to April (which boosted Uncharted in February), leaving just Scream to rule in January. March lost Guy Ritchie’s Operation Fortune (still unreleased) and Disney’s Turning Red and was left with only The Batman and The Lost City. April was pleasantly packed (Morbius, Sonic 2, the always doomed Fantastic Beasts 3, Ambulance, The Northman, The Bad Guys, etc.) but May had just Doctor Strange 2 and Top Gun 2 with two smaller flicks (Downton Abbey 2 and Firestarter) in between.

There are a handful of reasons why the movie slate looks so slight. There’s still a Covid-caused post-production crunch that kept films like Black Adam out of the summer. Studio programmers like Jennifer Lopez’s Shotgun Wedding and Kevin Hart’s The Man from Toronto are still being sold to streamers. Decisions made back when streaming was seen as a miracle cure are still in play, which means (for example) Disney’s terrific Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers and Warner’s enjoyable enough Father of the Bride remake are streaming premieres. There’s an entire slate of “studio programmers” courtesy of 20th Century Studios (The Valet, Fire Island, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, The Princess, Not Okay and Prey) that might have been theatrical but is now Hulu-bound. All of this combines to create a scenario where the biggest threat to theatrical isn’t Covid but rather the lack of theatrical movies.

I hope Paramount’s miraculous comeback, Sony’s verbal commitment to old-school windows and Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslov allegedly committing to 20-25 theatricals per year means we’ve turned a corner. That theatrical is still seen as on the ropes (and that overall revenue is still down from 2019) is due to a lack of regular mid-level theatrical product (bless A24 and Universal/Focus on this front) alongside industry and media that seem rooting for failure. Restaurants aren’t dealing with industry leaders and media types rooting for consumers to just stay home and order in. We’ve had consistent evidence over the last year that big movies still make big bucks in theaters. We had three films earning $40 million last weekend and may see five films gross $20 million this weekend. The message has been clear: If you release them, audiences will come and see them.