Forecast: 2023 box office to hit $32bn
April 24, 2023
By Colin Mann
With Q1 completed and Universal’s Super Mario Bros Movie providing a triumphant start to Q2, Gower Street analysts have reviewed their early Global box office estimate of $29 billion (€26.4bn) for 2023 announced in December 2022. The updated projection represents a +10 per cent improvement from the earlier estimate.
The announcement comes as the global industry gathers in Las Vegas for CinemaCon, the official convention of The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), which runs April 24th-27th.
A $32 billion global box office in 2023 would represent an approximate +23 per cent improvement on 2022. It remains -20 per cent behind an average of the last three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019), but shows how post-pandemic recovery of the movie business continues to improve.
The US Domestic market slightly underperformed Gower Street’s Q1 projection (by -$100 million), but a growing release schedule has justified a modest increase in its earlier full-year estimate by $400 million to $9 billion.
China has seen a larger increase, from $5.6 billion to $6.8 billion. Following a disappointing 2022, early estimates for China remained conservative while the industry looks for more consistent signs of improvement. The market showed stronger recovery in Q1 than expected, including a very good Chinese New Year period. However, there remain some significant signs of concern. Figures once again were very low in March and while more US imports have received a release these have generally not shown the levels of box office success that would be hoped.
The increase to $6.8 billion puts China back on a level equivalent to 2021 (at current exchange rates), but the increase currently comes almost entirely (approximately 90 per cent) from how much Q1 actuals over-performed estimates. As recovery predictions for the market were already more bullish for further into the year, and until the market shows more consistent recovery especially on import titles, Gower Street is holding its Q2-4 estimates relatively steady.
The International (excluding China) market has been raised +10 per cent (or $1.4 billion), from $14.8 billion to $16.2 billion. A significant driver was a better than predicted Q1, led by the fantastic holdover business of Avatar: The Way Of Water. There was also support from a robust release calendar, local hits, and a number of non-US titles travelling well beyond their home markets (e.g. Japanese anime).
For the International market, January out-performed original estimate by +23 per cent, February by +10 per cent and March by +2 per cent. This added up to approximately $400 million in additional International revenues in Q1 than predicted in December. As in the Domestic market the release calendar has also gained additional titles later in the year which have helped improve predictions for the remainder of the year as well.
Additionally approximately 13 per cent of the $3 billion Global gain is as a result of changes in currency exchange rates between December 2022 and the end of March 2023.
This projection, calculated utilising data from Gower Street’s flagship FORECAST service and analyst assessment, is based on the current release calendar.