Gower Street’s Director of Theatrical Insights, Rob Mitchell, spoke to the UK’s Telegraph newspaper this week about the impact the long actor’s strike has had on the 2024 release calendar and what challenges that will pose for exhibitors and for box office growth.
Speaking to Charles Gant for the article titled ‘Inside Hollywood’s great blockbuster drought of 2024‘, published Monday Nov. 6, Rob revealed that while Gower Street was not currently projecting a box office dip in 2024 we do anticipate an unfortunate loss of vital momentum.
“The business growth that we are projecting for this year over last year, if that could have been repeated next year, we’d be back at the $40 billion level we were at before the pandemic,” said Rob. “We have seen months this year where the global box office, and a lot of individual markets, has been performing above the average of those months in the years immediately prior to the pandemic. It shows that the audiences were back at that level for the right movies.”
Rob continued: “The fact that the strike has gone on so long, and has caused so many delays in all levels of production, there is a risk that there won’t be significant growth, or possibly any growth, next year. It’s delaying the ability to build back for the industry. Cinemas went through a lot of difficulty for quite a long period during the pandemic, and were just getting back to a place where things were looking hopeful. Now that opportunity to get business back to where it was looks like it’s being kicked down the road.”
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