The Oscars represent the last chance for Barbenheimer's film as its 2024 box office faces an uncertain future
Oscars
Christy Karas March 9, 2024 The 96th Academy Awards on Sunday are expected to be the culmination of last summer's “Parpenheimer” phenomenon, as Christopher Nolan's three-hour historical drama about J. Robert Oppenheimer grossed nearly $1 billion as the clear favorite. Winning best picture. But the expected toast of this breakthrough for commercial event cinema comes at an uncertain time for Hollywood, where this year's domestic box office is off to a shaky start.
While some 2024 releases, like Paramount Pictures' reggae biopic “Bob Marley: One Love” and the musical reboot of “Mean Girls,” have scored well, others including Sony's superhero disaster Pictures “Madame Web” and Apple's spy thriller “Argylle” are amazingly tanky.
Oscar nominations 2024: complete list
It wasn't until last weekend that Warner Bros.' “Dune: Part Two” went live. Legendary is the first movie to open in four months
Above $80 million
, which gave the theater industry a much needed boost. Ahead of the highly anticipated arrival of Denis Villeneuve's latest sci-fi film
Scene
were domestic box office revenues
A decrease of 20% compared to the same period
last year,
According to data company Comscore
.
Did “Barpenheimer” dominate the Oscar nominations? It's complicated
Year after year
Impotence
Now standing at
13%
With another potential hit, Universal Pictures.
s
And DreamWorks Animation's “Kung Fu Panda 4,” which will be released this weekend.
Release date March 8, Friday
But a weak 2024 release calendar, disrupted by strikes by Hollywood writers and actors last year, could spell trouble for studios and exhibitors in the coming months.
Long, staggered hiatuses have prompted studios to push at least a dozen pictures through 2025 as of this year, including the eighth installment in Paramount's “Mission: Impossible” franchise and the live-action remake of “Snow White.” Disney production. Analysts estimate that full-year box office revenues for 2024 will fall between $8 billion and $8.5 billion in the U.S. and Canada, which will fall short of 2023's domestic revenues of $9 billion, stalling the industry's post-pandemic business recovery momentum. . Theatrical viewing had been on a steady decline even before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of multiplexes, due to changing audience habits and increasing competition from streaming, premium TV and video games.
“Coming out of winter now, which always seemed like the worst part of it all after the hits, there's more optimism,” he said.
Sean Robbins
, Senior Analyst at Boxoffice Pro. “But in general, the year doesn't have those kinds of movies where you look at the calendar and say, 'This is the automatic release.' [$300 million] Or $400 million in domestic box office gross.
Box office 2023: Buoyed by 'Barbenheimer' and stumbled by strikes and failures at franchises
It's easy to understand, then, why Hollywood is looking this weekend to revive the glory days of “Barbenheimer,” the surprise double-take that catapulted the North American box office to pre-pandemic levels.
No doubt, ABC executives are hoping the film's huge popularity will bring good ratings if they promise to accept it.
Stunning live performance of Ryan Gosling's “Barbie” anthem “I'm Just Ken”
During a television broadcast hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, there is no sign. These two films, which have grossed more than $965 million combined in the United States and Canada alone (and $2.4 billion worldwide), have successfully translated their commercial success into awards recognition.
He collected a total of 21 Academy Award nominations
. Oppenheimer leads the pack with 13 nods, while Greta Gerwig's “Barbie” scores eight. Both films were nominated for multiple acting awards as well as Best Picture. “These two films were truly a cultural phenomenon, and this phenomenon happened in theaters,” said Michael O'Leary, president of the National Assn. From the theater owners. “This year’s Oscars will be a celebration of some of the momentum we saw last year in terms of people recognizing and celebrating the experience of watching a movie on a big screen in a theater.”
It's not unusual for blockbuster films to receive Best Picture nominations. Last year saw Disney's motion-capture epic “Avatar: The Way of Water” and Paramount Pictures' “Top Gun: Maverick” win Best Picture after jointly taking home the Best Picture award.
$1.4 billion
At the local box office.
Oscars 2024: Final predictions for all 23 categories
But for the first time in more than two decades, “Oppenheimer,” a box office hit with a domestic gross of more than $200 million, may win the top prize. One has to look back all the way to
peter jackson
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and
Ridley Scott
“Gladiator” for example. And
James Cameron
“Titanic” before that.
“It's almost a bygone era when we talk about a time when best picture winners could have huge success on a semi-regular basis,” analyst Robbins said. “There have always been candidates… but they were hardly considered the front-runners of their time.”
It's different with Oppenheimer now. For me, it goes back to an era [‘The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King’] 20 years ago when it won Best Picture and then Gladiator before that.” “Bob Marley: One Love” is bringing positive vibes to a dismal winter box office.
Robbins credits A24's twisty fantasy adventure “Everything Everywhere at Once” as a rare instance of an indie darling
Become a mainstream jackpot hit
ticket window
Hit the juggernaut
In itself, while paving the way for the expected victory of “Oppenheimer” by winning the Best Picture award last year.
“
“Everything everywhere”
It has grossed over $100 million worldwide
a strong score for an offbeat A24 film.
“I should probably look [‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’] “It was a harbinger of what ended up being the next year with ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer,’” Robbins said. “‘Everything Everywhere’ was something that ticked the boxes from an artistic standpoint and from an awards season standpoint and also managed to become this commercial's hit.”
2024 Box Office Predictions: Low expectations, but don't count the wild cards
Another element that makes both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” stand out from previous Oscar-nominated films is the “eventfulness of the theatrical experience,” O'Leary said, which has motivated moviegoers to spend more time and money in theaters while observing the action. The unofficial holiday was Barbenheimer Weekend,
Partially driven by social media
.
For example, important
number. number
Many moviegoers chose to pay a higher price to watch Nolan's atomic bomb drama in premium large format, with Imax screenings representing
A record 26.2% of the film's opening weekend gross
. It's no coincidence that Universal later re-released “Oppenheimer” in Imax just in time for awards season.
(The film collected an additional $2.1 million after its Oscar nominations came out in January, according to measurement firm comScore.)
“Christopher Nolan made excellent and very deliberate use of IMAX cameras and techniques with Oppenheimer's film, including the first use of black-and-white IMAX film,” he said.
Rich Gelfond
CEO of Imax Corp., in an email.
According to The Times, “the film was largely produced to be seen in IMAX.” “When filmmakers adopt our technology, audiences inevitably follow,” Gelfond added.
“Oppenheimer's film has had a long and very successful run in IMAX, and all signs point to Dune: Part II enjoying the same success.”
“Barbie” beats “Oppenheimer” in a confrontation that broke records and revived the industry
“Dune” Part 2 is already on an impressive trajectory. But what about the rest of the 2024 film slate?
The main challenge facing exhibitors this year is just that
Total
There are fewer films scheduled for wide openings (95 versus 110 in 2023,
according to
CEO of Cinemark
Sean Gamble said last month
).
Total.
However, there are a number of upcoming franchise installments that have the potential to achieve big numbers.
In addition to Universal's “Kung Fu Panda 4,” “Twisters” and “Despicable Me 4,” Warner Bros. New movies like “Mad Max,” “Godzilla”/King Kong, “Joker,” and “Beetlejuice.” universes; Paramount is distributing “Gladiator 2” and “A Quiet Place: Day One.”
1
“; Sony is expanding the “Ghostbusters” and “Venom” franchises, and Disney is launching sequels to “Inside Out,” “Moana,” “Alien” and “Deadpool.”
After the sensational weekend of “Barbenheimer,” the film industry needs to get out of its own way
But if there's anything to be learned from recent box office disappointments like Sony's “Madame Web,” it's that Warner Bros. “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and “The Marvels” are produced by Disney and Warner Bros. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is that the new parts of the franchise are not guaranteed to connect with audiences.
“I'm not sure there's a one-size-fits-all approach that works,” O'Leary said. “Consumers today are increasingly concerned with what they want…. They want something compelling, they want something interesting. So I don't necessarily know that you can say, 'If we make a bunch of movies like this' and the audience will respond.”
Other promising 2024 releases include Universal's adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical “Wicked” and Amazon MGM's Zendaya-starring tennis drama “Challengers.”
Although Robbins suggested it was too early to predict the biggest results.
“Could it be something original?…Will it be something completely unpredictable?” Robbins said.
“Even 'Oppenheimer,' even though it was a Nolan film, it was hard to expect a three-hour, R-rated biopic to achieve the kind of box office that it did. So there's always going to be those surprise stories that come up in any given year, even “When it looks like the roster has some challenges ahead.”
