Gower Street CEO Dimitrios Mitsinikos kicked off the latest CJ Cinema Summit with updates on Global box office performance and Gower Street’s projections for 2022. The Thursday Sept. 15 CJ Cinema Summit, the regular webinar event presented by Celluloid Junkie and Filmgrail, marked its return after a summer-break and was hosted by Celluloid Junkie editor Patrick von Sychowski.
Patrick was joined at the top of the summit by Celluloid Junkie’s J. Sperling Reich, before introducing Dimitrios.
In a short presentation Dimitrios took Patrick, Sperling and the online attendees through where the Global theatrical business currently stands in 2022 before looking ahead to Gower Street’s latest projections.
He began by looking at the top 10 Domestic territories, showing that the top performing market compared to the average of the last three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019) is Texas (-25%). Others, like New York (-41%), have a longer way to go to catch pre-pandemic levels, although some other states outside the top 10 are performing better (Idaho is the closest to pre-pandemic levels: -19%). Overall, as of Sept. 10, the Domestic market is tracking -33% behind the average of the last three pre-pandemic years.
He then moved on to discuss the International picture. Dimitrios revealed the International market (exc. China) is currently tracked -30% behind the pre-pandemic average, with some major markets such as Japan (-13%), Australia (-19%), and UK/Ireland (-25%) performing better than or as well as the best of the US states in terms of the deficit to pre-pandemic times. He concluded the first segment of his presentation with a global overview, showing that Global business was currently tracked -34% behind the pre-pandemic average.
All of the International and Global data was taken from our latest State Of The Market report – a weekly subscription report which is available to purchase here.
Dimitrios then moved into the second part of his presentation, looking at the Gower Street projection for 2022. He demonstrated how Gower Street’s initial Global box office projection of $33.2 billion for 2022, first revealed in December 2021, had changed overtime due to calendar changes and unpredictable challenges including Covid-caused closures in China and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He discussed our subsequent revisions announced for CinemaCon and CineEurope.
He then revealed our latest, and final in-year, projection for 2022 and how it had been further impacted by rapidly changing exchange rates as the US dollar gained strength against other currencies. He demonstrated that, at previous exchange rates, our updated projection would come in at $29.0 billion – a 13% ($4.2bn) drop from the original estimate. This is primarily the result of a weakened Chinese market (one of only two major markets, alongside Russia, expected to see a year-on-year drop in business). China accounts for more than half (57%) of the drop (-$2.4 Bn). The loss of such tentpole titles as MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONGING, PART ONE, AQUAMAN AND THE LOST CITY, SUPER MARIO BROS, THE FLASH, CREED III, JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4, and SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE was a key driver in losing $1.2 billion off our original Domestic estimate. Of the $627 million reduction in our International (exc. China) estimate, nearly half of that (45%) comes from Russia (-$284m) following US-studio boycott.
However, when applying latest exchange rates to the new estimate we lose another $1.9 billion of the Global number (half a billion comes off China alone). This puts our final projection for Global box office in 2022 at $27.1 billion (see image below).
Dimitrios then concluded with a very early consideration of 2023 projections.
A full recording of the CJ Cinema Summit, including discussion with Warner Bros’ Andrew Cripps and Jeff Goldstein, can be accessed here.
