{"id":32488,"date":"2023-12-28T14:26:52","date_gmt":"2023-12-28T19:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/?p=32488"},"modified":"2024-01-17T15:17:29","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T20:17:29","slug":"2023-in-review-the-biggest-stories-surprises-and-disappointments-at-the-box-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/2023-in-review-the-biggest-stories-surprises-and-disappointments-at-the-box-office\/","title":{"rendered":"2023 in Review: The Biggest Stories, Surprises, and Disappointments at the Box Office"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Listen to our full analysis on The Boxoffice Podcast<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/share.transistor.fm\/e\/a93448f8\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>THE<\/strong> <strong>BIGGEST STORIES OF THE YEAR AT THE BOX OFFICE<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Barbenheimer\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The success of <em>Barbie<\/em> and <em>Oppenheimer<\/em> coming out over the same weekend\u2014both igniting enthusiasm, not just around movies, but around <em>going to the movies<\/em>\u2026it didn&#8217;t use to be weird to have two wildly disparate movies come out over the same weekend. I think we saw a lot more counter-programming this year\u2026we\u2019re back to getting more options at the multiplex. This year&#8217;s big win is for counterprogramming, having a variety of movies across different genres and budget levels.<br><em>&#8211; Rebecca Pahle\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s not just counterprogramming; people were really into seeing those two specific movies together because of their ironic pairing. That tells me people still like going to the movies and are excited to go to something that feels like an event\u2014and Barbenheimer felt like an event. It was an event that was created organically, not something the studios colluded to create. It happened because people wanted it to happen, which is incredibly rare\u2014and specifically rare in the current environment.\u00a0<br><em>&#8211; Russ Fischer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My biggest takeaway from the Barbenheimer phenomenon wasn&#8217;t about the two individual films themselves. It was that the focus of the whole affair centered around moviegoing\u2026There was a worldwide buy-in to the concept from people wanting to participate in this. Everyone in this industry wants to repeat it, but you can&#8217;t box something this up. It&#8217;s not formulaic. It&#8217;s going to be hard to find a moment like this again. It was lightning in a bottle.<br><em>&#8211; Daniel Loria<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Decline of the Superhero &amp; The Rise of the Video Game Movie<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Superhero movies have gone from as close to a guarantee as you could have at the box office to something with a high floor but a low ceiling\u2014and when we get the DCEU movies, those proved not even to have a high floor anymore. As these superhero movies struggle more than they used to at the box office, video game movies\u2014which famously used to be a big challenge for studios to develop successfully\u2014seem to be getting much more traction. We saw Paramount\u2019s two <em>Sonic<\/em> movies bring in a new audience, and Universal\u2019s <em>Super Mario Bros<\/em>. will finish 2023 as the number two film of the year.\u00a0<br><em>&#8211; Daniel Loria<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After decades of people trying to make video game movies work, we\u2019re finally starting to see them live up to their box office potential.\u00a0 Sony has <em>Uncharted<\/em>, Paramount has <em>Sonic<\/em>, and Universal made a statement this year with both <em>Super Mario Bros.<\/em> and <em>Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s<\/em>. The secret sauce here seems to be that we needed an audience of Zoomers who grew up with these games and have nostalgia for them. People who grew up playing the games waited years to see these characters in a movie. <em>Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s<\/em> opened to $85 million in North America, despite opening day-and-date on Peacock for subscribers. That\u2019s not something anyone could have predicted.\u00a0<br><em>&#8211; Rebecca Pahle<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can&#8217;t discount the Zoomer audience, especially when you look at <em>Five Nights at Freddy&#8217;s<\/em>. That&#8217;s a massive part of that film\u2019s success. I think a big component of this video game movie renaissance is simply getting it right: making a movie that looks like the game you are basing it on. It goes back to <em>Sonic<\/em>, when Paramount released a trailer that the fans hated. They went back and reworked how the character looked on screen! I&#8217;m very resistant to the idea that fans know best regarding these properties; I don&#8217;t believe that&#8217;s true. But when it comes to video game movies, you need to make them in a way that they\u2019re not just recognizable to audiences but make them in a way that relies on their participation in the development of those stories. Games are participatory in a way that other media is not. There&#8217;s a different connection to video game characters, a different involvement with those experiences.<em> Five Nights at Freddy&#8217;s<\/em> shows that you can change around the story, and the fans will probably still be on your side as long as the movie retains the look and feel of the game.\u00a0<br>&#8211; <em>Russ Fischer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>THE BIGGEST BOX OFFICE HIT OF THE YEAR<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"488\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/rev-1-BARBIE-TP-0002_High_Res_JPEG-1024x488.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/rev-1-BARBIE-TP-0002_High_Res_JPEG-1024x488.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/rev-1-BARBIE-TP-0002_High_Res_JPEG-300x143.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/rev-1-BARBIE-TP-0002_High_Res_JPEG-768x366.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/rev-1-BARBIE-TP-0002_High_Res_JPEG-1536x732.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/rev-1-BARBIE-TP-0002_High_Res_JPEG-2048x977.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/rev-1-BARBIE-TP-0002_High_Res_JPEG-600x286.jpeg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Margot Robbie as Barbie, Courtesy of Warner Bros. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>Barbie <\/em><\/strong><strong>(Warner Bros.)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As soon as we got to Warner Bros.\u2019 CinemaCon presentation and saw Andrew Cripps and Jeff Goldstein walk out in bright hot pink suits and saw the footage reveal with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling on stage, that\u2019s when Rebecca and I turned to each other in the press section of the Colosseum at Ceasars Palace and realize this is going to be the movie we&#8217;re going to be talking about for the rest of the year. We came into this year without a clear pick for a film that could hit $500 million domestically; <em>Barbie <\/em>stepped up and grossed over $635 million in North America alone.\u00a0<br>&#8211; <em>Daniel Loria<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>BEST THEATRICAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>Barbie <\/em><\/strong><strong>(Warner Bros.)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I realized how big this movie could be when I saw the line of people waiting to take pictures with those life-sized <em>Barbie <\/em>lightboxes at CinemaCon. I remember seeing that and imagining how moviegoers would react to them at their local theater.<br>&#8211; <em>Rebecca Pahle<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It almost felt like a throwback to the 90s: a summer release with a hit soundtrack and toy tie-ins that felt like a global cultural event you could only experience at the movies. I hadn\u2019t seen something like that in decades.<br>&#8211; <em>Daniel Loria<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>BEST THEATRICAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Honorable Mention: <\/strong><strong><em>Sound of Freedom <\/em><\/strong><strong>(Angel Studios)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We need to single out the grassroots marketing campaign for something like <em>Sound of Freedom<\/em>, a title none of us expected to hit the way it did and ended up cracking the top 10 domestically. This movie came out of nowhere, released over a crowded July 4 weekend, and broke out through word of mouth and the support of independent theater owners. Hometown exhibitors were crucial to this film\u2019s success. It\u2019s an essential lesson to the rest of the industry: instead of alienating independent cinema owners and making their lives impossible, if you reach out and work with them\u2014give them everything they need to make your film a success\u2014they will work as hard as they can to make sure the film succeeds.\u00a0<br>&#8211; <em>Daniel Loria<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"684\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Screen-Shot-2023-12-28-at-1.10.40-PM-1024x684.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32489\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Screen-Shot-2023-12-28-at-1.10.40-PM-1024x684.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Screen-Shot-2023-12-28-at-1.10.40-PM-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Screen-Shot-2023-12-28-at-1.10.40-PM-768x513.png 768w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Screen-Shot-2023-12-28-at-1.10.40-PM-1536x1026.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Screen-Shot-2023-12-28-at-1.10.40-PM-600x401.png 600w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Screen-Shot-2023-12-28-at-1.10.40-PM.png 1788w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image Courtesy of Angel Studios.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>BIGGEST BOX OFFICE SURPRISE OF THE YEAR<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>Sound of Freedom<\/em><\/strong><strong> (Angel Studios)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We first heard about Sound of Freedom at CinemaCon, when they played the trailer at one of the luncheons and made the risky decision to begin rolling it out over the Fourth of July weekend. From the get-go, [Angel Studios] showed a willingness to work hand-in-hand with cinemas in the release of this film\u2014and we can see the impact that had at the box office.<br>&#8211; <em>Rebecca Pahle<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/NEW-POSTS10-1024x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/NEW-POSTS10-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/NEW-POSTS10-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/NEW-POSTS10-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/NEW-POSTS10-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/NEW-POSTS10-600x600.png 600w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/NEW-POSTS10.png 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>BIGGEST BOX OFFICE SURPRISE OF THE YEAR<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Honorable Mention: <\/strong><strong><em>Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour <\/em><\/strong><strong>(AMC Distribution)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It sounds weird that a Taylor Swift concert movie would be considered a surprise at the box office, but this movie was nowhere near the schedule at the start of the year. This movie ended up on the schedule after Hollywood\u2019s two labor strikes derailed the momentum we had built over the summer, filling a void left by films that left the schedule, like Sony\u2019s <em>Kraven the Hunter<\/em>, <em>Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,<\/em> and Warner Bros.\u2019 <em>Dune Part II<\/em>. That is when AMC came in with a groundbreaking new partnership with Taylor Swift herself to put this movie out in theaters\u2026This happened because exhibition made it happen and put in the effort to make it happen after those hard lessons from the pandemic. When you cannot rely on studios to put out movies, you need to find a way to rely on yourself to make moviegoing a destination.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br>&#8211;<em>Daniel Loria<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>THEATRICAL DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Universal<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Universal kicked off the year with a sleeper hit like <em>M3gan <\/em>and kept finding ways to overperform throughout the year with new properties like <em>Fight Night at Freddy\u2019s<\/em>. They did a tremendous job with their half of the Barbenheimer phenomenon. A movie like <em>Oppenheimer<\/em> is a much tougher marketing lift than <em>Barbie<\/em>, which comes with a built-in marketing hook.<br><em>&#8211; Rebecca Pahle<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fact that a movie like <em>Oppenheimer<\/em> can gross $326 million domestically is something that we have to highlight. You just don&#8217;t see that in today&#8217;s industry: a dialogue-driven three-hour-long drama set in the 1940s, essentially a movie about a group of guys in lab coats talking about science in the desert. This movie made nearly a billion dollars worldwide thanks to Universal&#8217;s support.<br><em>&#8211; Daniel Loria<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The partnership with Illumination has to be one of the best business deals that Universal has ever made, <em>Super Mario Bros.<\/em> was a huge hit. They also did very well by Christopher Nolan\u2026it&#8217;s bold that they went forward with that movie and gave it an extensive summer marketing campaign. It is not something many other studios would have done, even for a filmmaker with the recognizance factor of Christopher Nolan. The movie benefited from it, and so did everyone else around its release.\u00a0<br><em>&#8211; Russ Fischer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>THEATRICAL DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Honorable Mention: Angel Studios<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This was the year Angel Studios entered the mainstream, they are now a real presence at the multiplex\u2026We are giving this accolade based on the strength of <em>Sound of Freedom<\/em> at the box office, along with its innovative release model in counterprogramming the title over the July 4 weekend with a pay-it-forward campaign\u2026but that doesn\u2019t mean we expect all their future releases to hit that high water mark. What I like about Angel Studios is that they\u2019re not distracted by producing crossover hits with each film; it\u2019s about activating and engaging the sizeable audience base their films already have. That has always been the failed promise of faith-based films at the box office, their inability to reach their intended audience\u2014regardless of their crossover potential. We may look back at <em>Sound of Freedom<\/em> as an outlier, but I don\u2019t think Angel Studios is trying to replicate that crossover success with all their releases. As long as they can consistently appeal to their audience base, Angel Studios will continue playing an essential role for movie theaters nationwide.\u00a0<br><em>&#8211; Daniel Loria<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>BIGGEST BOX OFFICE DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GRO-09769_R-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32095\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GRO-09769_R-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GRO-09769_R-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GRO-09769_R-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GRO-09769_R-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GRO-09769_R-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GRO-09769_R-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Marvels, photo by Laura Radford, Courtesy of Disney\/Marvel Studios<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>The Marvels<\/em><\/strong><strong> (Disney)<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I know there are all sorts of caveats and asterisks we can bring in whenever we talk about a box office disappointment of this scale, but we cannot possibly see the performance of <em>The Marvels<\/em> as anything other than disastrous\u2026to go from <em>Captain Marvel <\/em>being a $1.1 billion movie to <em>The Marvels<\/em> grossing $200 million worldwide, that&#8217;s an alarm that goes beyond the issues we\u2019re experiencing with superhero movies at the box office. Disney isn\u2019t immune to this trend; we\u2019re seeing signs of it with Warner Bros.\u2019 lame-duck DCEU, and I have some concerns about how this may play out with Sony\u2019s upcoming Spider-Man-Without-Spider Man superhero movies in 2024.\u00a0\u00a0<br><em>&#8211; Daniel Loria<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen to our full analysis on The Boxoffice Podcast THE BIGGEST STORIES OF THE YEAR AT THE BOX OFFICE Barbenheimer\u00a0 The success of Barbie and Oppenheimer coming out over the same weekend\u2014both igniting enthusiasm, not just around movies, but around going to the movies\u2026it didn&#8217;t use to be weird to have two wildly disparate movies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":32495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-12-28T19:27:27Z","apple_news_api_id":"0f5e10b9-0881-44d8-b17d-e05ffa71fe11","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-12-28T20:23:11Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AD14QuQiBRNixfeBf-nH-EQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[5324,5001,5002,5161,5265,4159,862],"class_list":["post-32488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition-features","tag-angel-studios","tag-barbie","tag-oppenheimer","tag-sound-of-freedom","tag-taylor-swift-the-eras-tour","tag-the-marvels","tag-universal"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boxofficepro.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}