Box Office: Revenge of the Franchises
Franchises are both the lifeblood and bane of Hollywood’s existence. When everything clicks, a series can keep consumers intrigued for years if not decades — James Bond, Batman, Star Wars, Mission: Impossible, Superman. But sooner or later, fatigue sets in and the complaints begin (i.e., what happened to originality?)
The 2024 summer box office was a rare exception. For the first time in recent memory, “franchise” no longer was a dirty word, says one top studio executive. Those big brands helped push year-to-date domestic grosses to more than $5.4 billion as of the weekend of Sept. 6-8, which is still down about 13 percent compared with a year earlier but better than expectations for this point in 2024.
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The reversal in fortune began after a rough May that saw The Fall Guy, a potential franchise newbie, spin out at the box office, followed by the blowout of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga ($172 million globally), which had followed the triumphant relaunch of the series with Mad Max: Fury Road ($380 million) in 2015. The one bright spot of May was Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, one of the numerous film properties Disney’s film empire inherited after the larger acquisition of Fox assets in 2019.
Apes was a crucial test in the post-Disney merger, and it passed; the movie grossed nearly $400 million globally, enough to fulfill filmmaker Wes Ball’s dream of a new trilogy. Alien: Romulus, released in August, was another successful test of the 20th Century-Disney marriage (the pic has grossed north of $300 million globally, the second-best showing of the franchise behind 2012’s Prometheus, not adjusted for inflation).
The overall box office rebound began in early June with Sony’s fourquel Boys: Ride or Die. The pic opened well ahead of expectations in a foreshadowing of better days to come. In mid-June, Inside Out 2
put Pixar back on the map with a record-shattering opening on the way to becoming the top-grossing animated film of all time ($1.675 billion globally) and the No. 8 biggest film of all time, sandwiched between Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.926 billion) and Jurassic World ($1.672 billion). Paramount extended its Quiet Place franchise with Day One ($261 million), while Universal and Warner Bros. spun off Twisters with fresh stars to the tune of $366 million.
“Nearly every studio saw several summer releases over perform box office expectations across different ratings and genres throughout the rest of the summer,” says box office analyst Comscore Paul Dergarabedian. “Disney takes the headline with Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Alien Romulus. Universal found success with Despicable Me 4 and Twisters. Paramount saw great returns from A Quiet Place: Day One and recovered from an iffy opening weekend for IF to see that title leg out to $100 million-plus. Sony bookended the summer with hits like Bad Boys Ride of Die, which fell just short of $200 million domestic, and the late summer hit It Ends with Us.”
Speaking of Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine, it’s a balm for Kevin Feige’s superhero studio. The film is the second-biggest title of the year with more than $1.287 billion in ticket sales and a franchise best no matter how you slice and dice it. In the span of a few short months, Disney — the Hollywood studio designed more than any other to subsist on franchises — once again is dominating its rivals after losing its No. 1 standing to Universal last year in a stunning fall from grace. Its movies accounted for $1.5 billion in summer domestic box office ticket sales, or a 42 percent share. Disney insiders are especially pleased about such titles as Apes and Aliens because those were properties that came from 20th Century Fox and were more difficult to pull off in terms of reviving older brands with less of a built-in crowd than, say, Deadpool.
Warner Bros. launched a rare September blockbuster as Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice roared to $147 million globally after its Sept. 6 debut. Next up as a franchise test for the studio: the music-filled sequel Joker: Folie à Deux, which bows Oct. 4 and is tracking for a $70 million opening. It has big shoes to fill, as Todd Phillips’ Joker took in $1.07 billion globally in 2019.
Blockbuster IP Buzz-O-Meter
A heat check on which franchises are underutilized, overexposed or overdue to bring back to theaters. By Borys Kit, Aaron Couch
1. Star Trek
Since 2016’s Star Trek Beyond underwhelmed with $343.5 million globally, Paramount has developed at least four new takes but made none. Why not mitigate risk and focus on the melodrama, like the modestly budgeted Wrath of Khan (1982)?
2. Terminator
Not even the return of James Cameron and Linda Hamilton could save 2019’s Dark Fate. But the new Netflix anime Terminator Zero suggests another movie could work — as long as you do something new with it.
3. Reign of Fire
Sure, the 2002 moving starring Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey bombed, but it grew a cult following. Bring the actors back, and it’s The Last of Us meets Game of Thrones in this postapocalyptic dragon tale.
4. Pirates of the Caribbean
Pirates was at the bottom of the sea even before the last entry, 2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales. This one would need to be restarted from scratch, but audiences do love a seafaring adventure.
5. Conan the Barbarian
Arnold Schwarzenegger long has talked about making an old-man Conan movie. Could this be the Logan of the franchise?
6. Spawn
Atoning for your sins and fighting through hell to get to the love of your life are evergreen concepts. The hard-R movie at Blumhouse has been in development since 2017. What’s taking so long?!
7. Lethal Weapon
Man, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover really are, in the words of Roger Murtaugh, getting too old for this shit. And don’t make them have kids. And don’t recast. Just create a new cop action franchise, OK?
8. Halloween
An unstoppable masked killer is a primal modern fear. Kudos to recent trilogy director David Gordon Green for making Michael Myers scary again. But after nearly 50 years (the first movie came out in 1978), isn’t it time for something new?
9. The Matrix
The original was one of the most influential blockbusters of all time. Ever since, it has faced diminishing returns, and even the 2021 legacy sequel, Resurrections, which brought the gang back together, failed to resonate. Please do not plug this back in.
10. The Crow
Listen, Crow license holders. You’ve tried and tried and tried to make this happen for years with sequels and direct-to-home movies and this new version. Time to clip these wings.
This story appeared in the Sept. 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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