2023's Hollywood Strikes Are Hitting 2024's Summer Box Office Hard

2024's box office got off to a rough start, and the big boost that's typically expected in the summer has yet to materialize. John Krasinski's "IF," a fantasy film about retired imaginary friends that combines live action and animation, is the latest release to debut to underwhelming numbers. Deadline reports that "IF" is on track to gross $30.5 million in its opening weekend, which is at the bottom end of projections (Box Office Pro forecast a $30-40 million debut earlier this week, and Deadline had it pegged for a $40 million start).

That's not a disaster for "IF" itself, which had a relatively constrained $110 million budget. It's a bigger start than the more-expensive action comedy flick "The Fall Guy" managed a couple of weeks ago. And while "IF" may not have impressed critics (its Rotten Tomatoes score is 50% as of this writing), it received an A CinemaScore from opening night exit polls, indicating that general audiences feel more warmly about it. Original movies are always a tough sell at the box office, so it's necessary to grade on a curve. 

Considering it's a PG film marketed towards families, the value of branding the "IF" posters so heavily with "A Quiet Place" director John Krasinski's name is questionable (there's a reason "Happy Feet" wasn't marketed as "from the director of 'Mad Max'"). The movie is also not helped, frankly, by its terrible and borderline unGoogleable title. Charismatic star Ryan Reynolds, who will return later this summer in "Deadpool & Wolverine," is probably the main reason this one didn't bomb outright. But, to paraphrase a certain grumpy clerk, "IF" wasn't even supposed to be here today.

Last year, it seemed like movies were finally back after the total shutdown and slow recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2023 summer box office didn't quite reach the heights of 2019 (which set a high bar by kicking off with "Avengers: Endgame") but it delivered hits like "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" and, of course, Barbenheimer. By this time last year, the summer box office had already seen two movies open above $100 million. This is the third weekend of the 2024 summer box office and, like the last two, it will fail to hit $100 million from all movies in theaters combined. 

Hollywood studios are currently reaping what they sowed by refusing to negotiate for months during last year's overlapping WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which kicked off at the start of May and weren't completely resolved until November. As studio executives blustered and threatened to hold out "until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses," a six-month hole grew in the production pipeline. This week, NBCU Studio Group chairman Donna Langley admitted to an audience at Cannes (h/t Deadline) that strike delays are behind the current downturn, saying, "We need volume to come back, we need more movies." 

"IF" is just one attempt to try and plug that hole. If it doesn't seem like a typical summer movie, that's because it wasn't supposed to be a summer movie. "IF" was originally scheduled for release in November 2023 as a nice family-friendly Thanksgiving movie. Now, Paramount Pictures has dropped it into a prime summer slot, where it's tasked with filling the vacuum left behind by the strike-delayed "Mission: Impossible 8." Talk about an impossible mission.

Next weekend will bring two more hopeful heroes: "The Garfield Movie" and "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga." But they're unlikely to save 2024's global box office, which is currently forecast for a 5% drop compared to last year, and an 18% drop compared to the three years leading up to the pandemic.