One Movie's Box Office Success Points To The Sad State Of Affairs Right Now

If you pay attention to the box office even a little bit, or even if you're just a moviegoer hoping to find something new to watch at your local multiplex, you've probably noticed that there hasn't been all that much on offer over the last few weeks. "The Beekeeper," "Mean Girls," and "Night Swim" are truly the only mass-appeal, wide-release movies we've had through the entire month of January (all due respect to "I.S.S."). As a result, several 2023 holdovers are still pulling in money nearly two months later, with Universal and Illumination's "Migration" benefitting greatly from the sheer lack of product in the marketplace.

This past weekend, the animated original feature pulled in $4.9 million, which was good enough to give it the number four spot on the charts. This is the movie's sixth weekend in theaters and here it is, able to easily stay in the domestic top five with a take of less than $5 million. It was sandwiched between more 2023 holdovers in the form of "Wonka" ($5.6 million) and the surprise breakout hit rom-com "Anyone But You" ($4.6 million). But it was good news for "Migration" as the film finally passed the $200 million mark worldwide. It has now earned $101 million domestically to go with $105.2 million internationally for a grand total of $206.2 million. Given its reported $72 million budget, this should be a winner for the studio.

In fairness to "Migration" (and other 2023 holdovers that have endured), I'm not here to diminish the movie's accomplishments. Word of mouth has been good on this one and as the only family-friendly animated game in town, it has served an audience that needs serving. The fact that director Benjamin Renner's film opened to just $12.4 million over Christmas weekend and has managed to hang around long enough to get past this milestone is impressive. But there's also no denying that it's the perfect encapsulation of the current sad state of affairs in the industry.

Much finger-pointing can be done now, but largely as a result of the strikes that shut down Hollywood last year, the release calendar is a barren wasteland in the first chunk of 2024. And, frankly, it's somewhat sparse at points later in the year as well. Theaters have had a rough road to recovery in the aftermath of the pandemic, and this is a downturn they cannot afford. Ticket sales are down 10% so far this year compared to 2023, and February currently looks like it could be just as bad as January — if not worse. The problem remains the same: Without new movies, theaters can't reasonably succeed.

But what we've seen recently is audiences are ready to come back to theaters when properly motivated to do so. That's why "Wonka" is now staring down the barrel of $600 million worldwide. It's why "Migration" has hung around. It's why "The Beekeeper" has become a hit, ridiculous premise and all. It's also why the 2024 Oscar nominees saw a healthy uptick in ticket sales recently. People want to go to the movies, it's just that Hollywood isn't giving them much new to watch right now.

So, what can be done/could have been done to amend the situation? If I were given the keys to Hollywood, I would have moved some releases up from April and March to earlier in the year. If I operated a major streaming service, I would have taken chances by putting planned direct-to-streaming movies in theaters. If I was a studio that had a classic movie celebrating an anniversary in the early part of the year, I would get it back in theaters to celebrate that anniversary. Anything is better than nothing.

We spoke more about this on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

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