The year is over. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was released, marking the official end of the DCEU. It goes out with a whimper. Aquaman won't be profitable, but it won't lose as much as The Marvels of The Flash did this year, which I suppose is some consolation prize.

As I said in my summer of busts post only two superhero movies this year made a profit theatrically. In certain corners of the box office community, there was a belief that The Marvels would beat Spider-Verse, but that never seemed realistic. It even came up short of the most conservative initial predictions for it. It did so poorly that it made The Flash's performance look decent.

So what happened? Last year Superhero movies dominated the box office. Although, Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water were the top 2 grossing movies. Both domestic and worldwide. But still, all three Marvel films opened to over 100M. Two made over 400M DOM, although, one had poor word of mouth. Even Thor: Love and Thunder, with some horrendous word of mouth, almost grossed 350M DOM. And all three were some of the most profitable blockbusters of the year.

I think 2022 laid the groundwork for what happened this year. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder were received poorly among general audiences. I would also say even though Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was well received, its reception was still pretty tepid, especially compared to the first. And people started enjoying blockbusters with a different look and flavor with Top Gun and Avatar, which made audiences reconsider what types of movies they should watch. Something I think falls in between here is The Batman, which, of course, is a superhero movie, but one that has a distinct look and feel. So, I would place that next to the blockbusters that offered something different than the MCU formula audiences had gotten used to consuming.

Going into 2023, audiences were still interested in superhero movies and, specifically, the MCU. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opened to over 100M, a franchise high. The poor reception of the film was, apparently, the straw that broke the camel's back for audiences.

This wasn't evident right away since the two superhero movies that were released right after (Guardians 3 and Across the Spider-Verse) were well-received and were some of the biggest hits of the year. Even with a softer opening, Guardians 3 managed to leg out incredibly well to outgross the first installment of the franchise. The post I made directly after Guardians 3 opened was perhaps premature in this regard. But I think the superhero films to come out after Spider-Verse proved that point right. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse required fantastic word of mouth to be the hits that they were. If they were received as poorly as the 2022 MCU films, they wouldn't have become the hits they are.

This might seem obvious, you need a good movie that audiences like to be a hit at the box office. But, this was not the case in the prime era of superhero movies. In 2016, Suicide Squad was released with poor critical and audience reception. Yet it grossed 325M DOM and 745M WW. That same year X-Men: Apocalypse still managed to make over 500M WW also with poor reception. Venom would make over 800M WW two years later. Even as recently as 2021, the poorly received Eternals (while the pandemic was still ongoing) made over 400M WW which is double The Marvel's gross.

Quantumania was the start of it but The Flash, Blue Beetle, The Marvels, and Aquaman cemented it. This is a dead genre, and it had an explosive death this year. The top three grossing movies this year worldwide are Barbie, The Super Mario Bros Movies, and Oppenheimer. All three are quite different. And I think they show that audiences are ready for something else, and are shopping around. What used to excite audiences in the 2010s simply isn't exciting them anymore. As GenZ becomes the same age Millennials were ten years ago, they're simply not into superhero movies. The demographic for superhero movies will continue to get older as they continue to fall out of fashion. GenZ is finding interest elsewhere as they made Hunger Games and Wonka hits that outgrossed the majority of superhero movies released this year.

So what of the future?

2024 is barren in Superhero movies. There are technically five comic book movies coming out. However, three of those are from the Sonyverse; Madame Web, Kraven the Hunter, and Venom 3. Two of those seem to be guaranteed bombs and I don't think anyone expects Venom 3 to hit the same numbers as the first Venom. The only two major comic book movies to come out in 2024 are Deadpool 3 and Joker Folie à Deux.

Deadpool 3 is going to be heavily connected to the MCU. With all the plot leaks available, it's looking to be a multiverse cameo fest. This seems exactly the wrong time to be doing this type of film. Cameo porn, as coined by James Gunn, is not a guaranteed money maker as The Flash made it evident earlier this year. Mix that in with the fact that Deadpool 2 was released now almost six years ago, when the market was friendlier to superhero movies, and how heavily connected it is to a Disney+ show, I don't believe this is going to right the MCU ship the way Disney is hoping.

Joker Folie à Deux, however, should benefit from not being a typical comic book film the way something like Deadpool 3 is going to be. And the first Joker has had a long shelf life in the minds of audiences. It should be able to rise above the fatigue of the genre to interest audiences in it.

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with another top 3 without superhero films. Audiences could potentially gravitate towards other blockbusters like The Garfield Movie, Beetlejuice 2, and Dune: Part Two, or some other variation of films, to make those the three highest-grossing films of the year.

As we look even further beyond, we have Captain America 4 (which was originally set to release in 2024 but got delayed due to them doing massive reshoots), Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, and Blade for the MCU in 2025. I doubt most of these are even gonna come out in 2025 since some of them don't even have completed scripts! From here on out I think the MCU is just too messy to predict. I suppose if something like Thunderbolts is good (which is being rewritten and directed by the duo that did Beef) that could help them start rebuilding their reputation. I'm not sure if there is gonna be any immediate fix available to jump-start the box office for this universe again though. I think it's gonna take some time. And I don't see the Avengers films currently planned to be massive money-makers either. I think it's time for Disney to reconsider their continuity, start over, and move on. They got too big too fast, and it's over.

Luckily for WB, well maybe not so lucky, the DCEU was already a disaster. So they got a headstart on rebooting and starting fresh with Superman: Legacy in 2025 (they should have rebooted after Justice League but Aquaman making a billion gave them false confidence that they could right the ship). Given Gunn's track record, this should be good. It should be well-reviewed, and it should get a strong audience reception. I think it can easily gross the same amount as The Batman given how much it has going for it. There has not been a good Superman movie since the 80s, I think it's about time a Superman movie breaks out with a 21st-century audience.

Also in 2025; The Batman Part II. Much like Joker, The Batman has kept a long shelf life. It resonated with the primary target audience for superhero films, that being white guys 25-35. It's dark and mature in a way that the audience wants these movies to be. People still talk about it and I don't see its relevancy dying down in another year. I think WB struck gold with The Batman, the way they did with Joker, and I think The Batman Part II could be another billion-dollar hit for WB.

It is weird to talk about a genre this way when it was dominant for most of my life. Writing a post-mortem for Superhero movies was not something I expected to do at the beginning of the year. It felt like something that was always going to be culturally dominant. But trends change and Hollywood is in an interesting place right now.

Note: Because the post is already going to be long enough, this will only cover the movies from May to July. August still counts as the summer movie season, but there's usually not a lot of big movies released, and this August hasn't been particularly interesting so far (do we really need to wait for Blue Beetle to bomb to talk about DC?).

On paper this should have been a great summer: The last Guardians of the Galaxy movie, another installment in the highly successful Fast and Furious movies, another Disney live-action remake which have been incredibly successful, a movie featuring Michael Keaton back as Batman, Indiana Jones, and a Tom Cruise movie after his highly successful Top Gun sequel.

That was on paper.

So what actually ended up happening?

Well a lot of busts.

First let's go over the saga of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. Early on it was a contender for a billion dollars this summer. Unfortunately for Disney Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania came out with the absolute worst reception of any Marvel movie since Eternals (and honestly even then it was definitely worse received). The Marvel brand was now tainted, at least a little. Pre-sales (that being the sale of tickets that people buy in advance) was looking bad. At one point it looked like it might open below 100 million.

In response to this, and confident in the product they had, Disney decided to drop the review embargo earlier. Resulting in similar positive critical reception that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever received . This finally made pre-sales climb higher, and once people actually started watching the movie positive word of mouth lifted it up to 118 million for the opening weekend. Still, this was much lower than what Guardians 2 opened up to six years ago (145M). It had a similar Cinemascore (the gold standard for audience reception) as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (A) but if we look at other factors it indeed had better word of mouth. It's because of this glowing word of mouth that it was able to leg it out 358 million. Having the best multiplier of any Marvel movie since... well the first Guardians. It also had more appeal internationally than the previous two Guardians movies (maybe due to the darker tone) and it made nearly 850 million worldwide. Which is phenomenal, especially considering it got off to a shaky start that first weekend.

I should re-iterate: Marvel movies don't perform like this anymore. They usually have big openings and weak-ish legs. Having a softer opening but longer legs is a thing of the past for these types of fan driven movies, they're usually reserved for films aimed at older audiences.

I'm gonna group the next two May releases together. Fast X and The Little Mermaid also had high expectations. Both are coming from predecessors that have made billions of dollars. And actually, both didn't perform too bad overall. Fast X didn't do well domestically (it's basically a dead franchise stateside) but did very well internationally making 700M WW, and The Little Mermaid didn't do well internationally but did pretty well domestically nearly reaching 300M DOM and 550M WW. These are respectable grosses. Just one problem: their budgets. Fast X is sporting a 340 million dollar budget, making it one of the most expensive films ever made, and The Little Mermaid is sporting a 250 million dollar budget. The break-even points for these films are 850M and 625M respectively. They did not reach them. They would have been profitable if Fast X had the same budget as F9 (225M) and The Little Mermaid had the same budget as Cinderella (95M). Those would have been the responsible budgets to make these films with, but alas shit happens. They were both shooting during the pandemic, which raised costs on productions, and Fast X had to switch directors half-way through production.. Still, money losers are money losers.

June starts off with a bang. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse opens to 120 million, more than Guardians 3 and four times more than what it's predecessor opened to. With great reviews and great audience scores, it becomes the first true out and out success since Guardians 3. It also had a much lower budget than all the summer blockbusters thus far. 100-150 million, according to differing reports (we'll know by the next year when Deadline does their most profitable blockbuster list) making profitability much easier. The film basically covered it's production budget in one weekend. It legged out pretty well. Outgrossing Guardians 3 domestically (375M) but not being able to match it internationally making nearly 700 million WW. While it did "fail" to meet the high expectations of 400M DOM, it's still massively successful. And will remain in the top 5 grossing films domestically.

The rest of June is a different story. First up we got Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which was, at one point, one of the biggest movie franchises around resulting in two billion dollar films. While it beat expectations opening weekend, opening to 61M, it did not leg it out very well. 155M DOM and 420M WW is not a great number, especially not compared to it's 200M budget. It made less than Bumblebee despite having twice the budget. It's basically a dead franchise at this point, and it was not the win Paramount needed after Dungeons and Dragons also flopped.

Then we get a double whammy. The Flash and Elemental open the same weekend. At one point The Flash was projected to open well above 100 million just for the weekend, but pre-sales told another story. Pre-sale trackers on the forum BoxOfficeTheory, saw what industry tracking couldn't: a lack of interest. The sales just weren't there. DC as a franchise is already on the decline. This was a movie about a minor character that debuted in Justice League (which also bombed heavily), with a controversial lead star, and just unappealing trailers, who would be interested? Michael Keaton fans, supposedly. That was what people were clinging onto. The older Keaton fans would come out and help the movie. Apparently there aren't any. Doesn't help that Keaton had his last Batman outing over thirty years ago, meaning no one below the age of 40 even really cares about him as Batman. It opened disastrously to 55 million. dropping throughout the weekend from toxic word of mouth. It didn't even manage to hit the lower end of those initial projections throughout it's entire run. WB dumped so much money into this, just for it to be the biggest bomb in their studio history.

Elemental, on the other hand, ended up fairing a little bit better. Not on opening weekend. God no. It opened to 29M, one of the lowest openings in Pixar's history. But, it was really well received by audiences. And people kept watching it week after week, resulting in some of the best legs Pixar has had in a while. Reaching over 150M DOM, and over 400M (and counting) WW. If it reaches 500M WW, which it still looks like it might, it would break even theatrically. That's not great, as studios would love to make money theatrically, but considering this could have been a massive money loser for Disney, it's quite an impressive run. Thanks to Disney's re-commitment to theatrical, their animation studios are slowly building themselves back up in the eyes of audiences.

To end the month came Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Supposedly the Top Gun: Maverick of 2023, at least that's what some people had pegged it as at the beginning of the year. Once again, it didn't work out that way. It premiered at Cannes to mixed reviews, and while the funko pop critics were able to get it to fresh on RottenTomatoes, the damage was done. Indiana Jones spent months with a rotten symbol. Even before that, trailer views were weak, the interest just wasn't there. Why? I think perhaps Crystal Skull was supposed to be the last outing for the character (which actually ended up being the second highest grossing film of 2008 and even outgrossed The Dark Knight internationally), and even before that The Last Crusade was supposed to be the last outing of this character. And now we're getting another last outing for the character. Except now he's 80. A fantasy wish-fulfillment character being 80 is probably not a great thing. It's also another situation where no one below 40 really cares about Indiana Jones (me excluded but I don't share the viewing habits of other people my age). So... it was over before it even started. It opened okay all things considering, 60M isn't bad. But it had mediocre drops week to week, no doubt due to mediocre word of mouth. And again, the budget was out of control. Initially reported to be 290M, the actual budget ended up being 320M. It didn't even get close to 400M WW. Making it one of the biggest bombs of all time, and certainly the biggest bomb of the year. This is probably the last straw for Lucasfilm. I can't imagine Disney letting them continue doing things this way.

Next one comes a sad one for me personally, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One the first big movie of July. They decided to release it over a 5-day weekend. And, more importantly, decided to open the weekend before Barbenheimer. Unfortunately, that meant that no one was paying attention to Tom Cruise's latest critically acclaimed action film. It opened below 80 million for the 5-day weekend, below Indiana Jones even. It's only hope was to leg it out well. But again, two big movies would come out a week later. Mission Impossible was yet another victim of Paramount's idiotic release date decisions. Dungeons and Dragons opened a week before Mario, despite positive reviews and audience reception that ended up dropping like a rock too. If Paramount had picked more empty dates both of these movies would have done better. MI is the only blockbuster this summer to be extremely well reviewed, to get positive audience reception (same scores as Fallout) yet not be a success at the box office. The budget didn't help, 290M, it was one of the first productions to restart during the pandemic that's where this audio of Cruise yelling at crew members breaking protocols comes from. They actually set the standard for productions during the pandemic. But, money losers are money losers, and Paramount has been bleeding a lot of money.

One of the more interesting success stories so far this year is Sound of Freedom. Originally produced in 2018, 20th Century Fox held the distribution rights. When Disney bought Fox they shelved the movie. Angel Studios then got the rights to the film. They opened it on the Fourth of July weekend (America!) to rave audience reactions. It opened modestly, to 19 million, but has legged out spectacularly. Outgrossing summer blockbusters like Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Domestically anyway. It was powered by conservative influencers and the often reliable christian market. It's been debated if this should count. As they had a pay it forward service, meaning people would buy tickets for others to use for free. There were several reports of sold out screenings playing to a largely empty room. Whatever it is. It's money for movie theaters. And it's clearly playing well to an underserved market.

Now we get to the big one: Barbie and Oppenheimer. For over a year these two have been building up hype. Christopher Nolan, who usually has his films distributed by Warner Bros., was incredibly unhappy with how they sacrificed his film Tenet during the 2020 pandemic and even was even less happy when WB announced that their entire 2021 slate would be day and date on HBOMAX. He then takes his next project to Universal, after they agreed to a laundry list of demands. They pick the date July 21st, because that's the date Nolan likes and is "reserved" for him. Warner Bros originally had Coyote vs Acme there, a live-action Looney Tunes film with John Cena. However, they remove Coyote vs Acme from the schedule (it still has no release date) and instead put Barbie there. It originally started off as a "battle." Who would win, who would flop? But as we got closer, it became something else. The stark contrast between the two films, while both being from filmmakers who are lauded by younger people online, led to the creation of Barbenheimer. It wasn't "which one will win" it was "we're excited for both." It also wasn't, as some people think, manufactured by Universal and Warner Bros (why on earth would competing studios work together) it was organic. If it wasn't organic it wouldn't have worked. Barbie opened to over 160M and Oppenheimer to over 80M.

What makes their successes so great for the industry, is that they're in genres that have not been doing well post-pandemic. Even pre-pandemic comedies like Barbie were struggling. The last big comedy to hit 200M DOM was Ted back in 2012. Barbie easily blew past that. It's also a female oriented film in a time where women have been one of the slowest demographics to return to theaters. Adult dramas were also on lifeline. Elvis had been the highest grossing one post-pandemic, but pre-pandemic we would get multiple hits. In 2019: 1917, Little Women, Ford vs Ferrari, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood all grossed over 100M DOM. In the two years since the pandemic only Elvis managed to hit that mark. But now Oppenheimer, something that on paper is tailor made for the end of the year Oscar season, opens like a blockbuster in the summer. It's the first drama to make over 200M DOM since Joker, and first non-franchise drama to make that much since Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born crossed that threshold back in 2018.

Maybe it's a fluke, maybe it was just because it was these films specifically. But it's hard not to feel optimistic that this will translate to other dramas like Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon, and other female-oriented films like Wonka.

Smaller successes and optimism for the future of theatrical:

I covered the big movies. But what about the rest of the slate? Movie theaters can't just survive on 20 or so big movies a year. They need the smaller films to still deliver some money. These past two years, the box office has been incredibly top heavy. We either got films that only made a ton of money or we got movies that made no money.

Let me give you an example of the struggle of this specific market. The Peanut Butter Falcon was the 100th grossing film domestically of 2019. It grossed 20 million. In 2021 it was The Father with 2.1 million, in 2022 it was Cyrano with 3.8 million. You can see the toll the pandemic took here. But you can also see slight recovery.

I believe 2023 is the year we see substantial recovery in his part of the market. Smaller, non-franchise, and art-house films have been making more money than they have been in the past two years.

Let's look at some examples:

Asteroid City has the highest opening PTA (per-theater-average) of any film since the pandemic. Over 100k PTA something that used to be more common before the pandemic. And, once it goes wide, grosses 27 million domestic. Compare that to Wes Anderson's previous film which grossed 16 million domestic.

Past Lives also opens to a healthy PTA of 58k. That's higher than TAR and The Banshees of Inisherin. And that's without any star power and without having a well known Director. It has Oscar buzz, to be fair, but so did the other two and it still managed to outgross both of them when it went wide. So these types of awards films are already doing better than they were even six months prior.

No Hard Feelings not so much a small film, it's not an art-house film, and it's not an awards contender. It's a mid-budget comedy that relied solely on star power as a selling point. It's exactly the type of movie that failed countless times in 2021 and 2022. Yet, it outgrossed star-studded R-rated comedies from last year such as Amsterdam, The Menu, and Babylon pretty easily. Making 50 million domestic. It, perhaps, did not turn a profit theatrically, but it at least made some of its money back. Even a year ago, the thought of this type of movie making anything more than it did would have been unfathomable. Even Ticket to Paradise, which did make more than No Hard Feelings especially internationally, was PG-13 and had two old school stars headlining it instead of one young one.

I think these three movies really do show how much the market continues to improve, even as we faced massive bombs. When something as benign as Theater Camp can open with a PTA on par with Banshees of Inisherin, we're definitely heading in the right direction.

This was quite the summer for Hollywood. With so many high profile bombs, and two surprise hits, this already feels like a transformational year for the industry. Trends are changing. Franchises from the 2010s (mostly from Disney) are no longer the guaranteed money makers they were. The unions are on strike. Studios are looking to cut costs. It's a whirlwind.