Box Office Recovering From 2020 Closures, Down From '19: Wedbush
North American box office is trending 41.1% lower year to date, to $1.01 billion, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote investors Tuesday. Q2 domestic box office is “significantly higher” than last year when theaters were closed in April and May during…
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COVID-19 lockdowns; June’s $368 box office receipts, to date, were above last year’s $4 million but 68% below June 2019 receipts, said the analyst. Wedbush estimates 2021 domestic box office will end up 129% over 2020 and down 58% from 2019. It’s predicting a 126% year-on-year increase in 2022, 4% down from 2019, though “studios are hedging through the end of the year by releasing several titles day-and-date with their streaming platforms so that they can both drive box office while boosting monthly subscribers.” Pachter expects studios to revise strategies for 2022 as attendance trends become clearer through the summer and into the holidays, then to employ “near-normalized exclusive theatrical windows for blockbusters in 2022.” Smaller budget films will likely have shorter exclusive windows, benefiting from combined theatrical-streaming marketing, he said.