Summer box office is down on 2023 at UK and Ireland cinemas, thanks largely to the season’s slow start. Screen reports on a market that remains optimistic about the year in full.
Perspective is key when considering market performance, and in the case of the UK and Ireland summer box office this year, a fuller context has tended to dampen any good vibes that might have somehow surfaced.
Yes, cinema operators in the territory could take heart that July’s box-office tally of £103.3m ($133.3m) was the biggest total of any month so far this year — but, less encouragingly, the number represents a 36% drop on July 2023. This followed a June total that was 7% up on 2023, and a May that was 29% down year-on-year.
In the case of July, the month was always going to struggle to match 2023, given the arrival of ‘Barbenheimer’ in UK and Ireland cinemas on July 21, generating more than £76m ($98m) before August had even begun, and eventually achieving £154m ($199m).
Thanks to a relatively solid start to August this year, boosted not just by Deadpool & Wolverine but also the less-heralded It Ends With Us, the full summer UK and Ireland box office for the 15-week period beginning the first Friday of May has reached £303.8m ($392.1m), down 23.4% on the same period for 2023, and a gentler 13.8% down on 2022.
“The summer has definitely been a season of two halves,” comments Andy Leyshon, CEO at trade body Film Distributors’ Association, with reference to the season’s slow start from a release calendar denuded by the impact of the Hollywood actors and writers strikes. “The comparison with last year’s Barbenheimer phenomenon was always going to be a tough one.”
Earlier in the year, Digital Cinema Media supplied its prediction for the top 10 films at the 2024 UK and Ireland box office, plus predicted grosses — giving a combined gross of £127m ($164m) for the summer trio Despicable Me 4, Deadpool & Wolverine and Inside Out 2. Although Despicable Me 4 looks set to fall short of DCM’s projection, the three titles had already grossed a combined £139m ($179m) at press time, and with box-office gas still left in the tank for all three. In other words, summer 2024 may not match up to last year, but the big films — or at least Disney’s titles — have exceeded expectations.
An ongoing challenge for the UK and Ireland is the market’s traditional reliance on US titles, especially in the summer period, which made it vulnerable to the strike-impacted glitch in supply. Earlier this year, local UK hits included Wicked Little Letters and Back To Black, while Paddington In Peru lands in November, but the summer has been a wasteland for British storytelling.
Robert Mitchell, director of theatrical insights at tech company Gower Street, points out that while the UK and Ireland in June and July was respectively 19% and 22% down on the pre-pandemic three-year average for those months (average of years 2017-19), France, Germany, Spain and Italy all saw box-office rises for those months compared to the pre-pandemic period. All enjoyed significant local hits this summer, notably in France where A Little Something Extra and The Count Of Monte Cristo rank first and third for the summer period (sandwiching Inside Out 2 in second place).
While it is true that 2023 was not fertile for local UK hits either (Take That musical Greatest Days landed flat), “Oppenheimer, while not a British film per se, had a very strong British/Irish skew, and it overperformed here,” says Mitchell.
Phil Clapp, CEO at the UK Cinema Association, echoes Mitchell’s point. “You can look at pretty much every major non-UK European territory, and point to one, two or three local films that are in their top 10 for the year so far. You look at ours, and there’s not much to point at.”
Indie sector
The lack of an Oppenheimer has been felt by one part of the exhibition sector, in particular: independent cinemas. Summer 2024 has been tough for venues where a Deadpool & Wolverine either does not fit the programming profile, or where a nearby multiplex with a premium large-format screen would be the preferred choice for audiences seeking that kind of blockbuster fare. Last year, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City (£4.9m/$6.3m in the UK and Ireland) proved a safe bet for independent cinemas.
This year, the closest equivalent — Kinds Of Kindness from Yorgos Lanthimos — just about nudged past £1m ($1.3m). Surprise indie hits this summer include Curzon’s La Chimera (£917,000/$1.19m) and MetFilm’s breakout documentary Wilding (£548,000/$710,000), with the latter performing strongly at independent cinemas outside London.
Top programming
At Light House Dublin, one of the UK and Ireland’s most consistently successful independent cinemas, summer box office is down on Barbenheimer-boosted 2023, but 25% up for year to date after a very strong awards season in Q1. A key element of Light House’s programme is archive, and this summer the venue offered a 25th-anniversary season of films from 1999 — long recognised as a banner year for strong original-IP titles.
“We are not necessarily going back to classics from 50 years ago,” explains Light House head of cinema Alice Black. “We call it the new nostalgia, and it moves with the audience. The 20-year benchmark is what we’re looking for, because that is what’s nostalgic for the cinemagoing public we’re trying to get.” Surprise successes this summer were Drop Dead Gorgeous (which grossed a slim £1.4m/$1.8m in the UK and Ireland on original release), The Mummy and — not in the 1999 season — a double bill of Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. “Every year, something will come out of the woodwork as a new cult classic that we weren’t expecting,” says Black.
Distributors have been quick to notice the audience trend, and re-releases of studio titles increasingly pepper the release calendar. This summer saw limited-time anniversary reissues of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (£1.6m/$2.1m) and Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (£688,000/$887,000). In early August, Sony began weekly re-releases of its eight Spider-Man films, grossing a combined £672,000 ($867,000) for the first two in the run. Trafalgar’s mid-August re-release of Laika animation Coraline grossed a powerful £1.3m ($1.7m) in just four days.
DCM’s original projection for UK and Ireland’s top 10 films for 2024 included six titles set to be released in Q4 (Wicked, Joker: Folie À Deux, Paddington In Peru, Mufasa: The Lion King, Moana 2 and Gladiator II), and Gower Street makes the same assessment. UK and Ireland box office for May, June and July combined has come in 3% below Gower Street’s original projection made at the beginning of the year, but the company sees a strong finish.
“The current year-on-year position isn’t ideal, though Q4 looks an absolute box-office beast,” comments FDA’s Leyshon. “I’m hopeful we will get to more of a position of parity with last year.” Gower Street is now projecting £1.01bn to £1.03bn (around $1.3bn) for 2024 — slightly behind 2023’s total of £1.06bn. It does not see the ongoing shrinkage in the UK multiplex footprint (see page 6) as a big factor in total box office.
Disney’s bounceback
For Mitchell, the pivotal film release of the summer — in terms of what it portends for the future — is not Deadpool & Wolverine, but Disney’s other big hitter, Inside Out 2. “Deadpool always felt a little bit removed from the MCU, so Deadpool & Wolverine succeeding doesn’t automatically feel like, ‘Oh, good, the MCU is rescued,’” he says. “The real test for that will be next year’s titles like Captain America: Brave New World.”
Conversely, “Because of Disney’s track record over the last two or three years with animation, we weren’t sure what was going to happen on Inside Out 2,” adds Mitchell. “The success of the film has built confidence. It has allowed us to rethink upcoming titles like Moana 2 and Zootopia 2. It now feels like, ‘Okay, Disney’s back.’”
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