Revising its projection from December last year, Gower Street Analytics has increased its estimate for global box office across 2023. The London-based firm now expects worldwide receipts to hit $32B for the year. The updated projection comes as the industry gathers in Las Vegas on the eve of CinemaCon and as The Super Mario Bros Movie is poised to be the first $1B global grosser of 2023.
Should the $32B figure hold, this would represent an approximate 23% improvement on 2022, while still trailing the average of the three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019) by 20%.
Gower is estimating that international box office will hit $23B (of that China reps $6.8B). This would be a 25% hike on 2022.
China has seen stronger than expected recovery in the first quarter following a disappointing 2022. The Lunar New Year period was solid and recently two Japanese movies have done bang up business (Suzume and The First Slam Dunk). However, there remains concern with a general lack of oomph from audiences with regard to Hollywood titles which have not reached hoped for levels despite a steady stream of release dates being granted.
Gower notes that the $6.8B full-year projection puts China back on a level equivalent to 2021 (at current exchange rates), but is based almost entirely on how much Q1 actuals over-performed estimates. The analytics firm is holding its Q2-Q4 estimates relatively steady.
Excluding China, overseas markets are eyed to reach $16.2B. A significant driver was a better than predicted first quarter, led by the holdover business of Avatar: The Way of Water, as well as a robust release calendar, local titles clicking and a number of non-U.S. movies travelling well beyond their home markets (notably Japanese anime). Germany is also rebounding.
Offshore markets in January out-performed Gower’s original estimate by 23%, with February up 10% and March +2%. More recently, there’s been great momentum from The Super Mario Bros Movie which has grossed $437.5M through Sunday.
Likewise, domestic is getting a boost from Super Mario, also over $430M. The first quarter slightly underperformed Gower’s original projection (by -$100M) but a growing release schedule has led the film tech company to lift its earlier full-year estimate to $9B for North America, which would be a 20% improvement from 2022.
Gower further notes that about 13% of its increased 2023 projection is due to currency exchange rate shifts between December 2022 and the end of March this year.