London-based Gower Street Analytics estimates that the 2023 Global box office hit $33.9 billion through December 31. This represented a +30.5 percent gain over 2022, continuing the global box office recovery. However, it remains -15 percent behind the average of the last three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019). Gower Street also recently estimated that, due in part to a strike-impacted release calendar 2024 is projected to drop slightly to $31.5 billion (a seven percent drop from 2023).
According to the latest data from Gower Street’s partners at Comscore Movies, the Domestic market remained the top global market in 2023 with an estimated $9.07 billion, up +21 percent year-on-year, but still -21 percent behind the 2017-2019 average. It accounted for 26.8 percent of the Global result, down from 28.9 percent in 2022.
The International market (excluding China) delivered an estimated $17.1 billion in 2023, a similar +20 percent gain compared to 2022 but tracking slightly better against the 2017-2019 average (-15 percent), in-line with the Global deficit. After a last-minute boost from December 30 release Shining for One Thing, China is estimated to have finished at $7.71 billion, gaining 83 percent compared to 2022 and finishing just -six percent behind the 2017-2019 average.
The results show both Global and International (excluding China) results finishing within 6 percent of Gower Street’s 2023 projection published for CinemaCon in April 2023, which had Global at $32.0 billion and International (excluding China) at 16.2 billion. At that time Domestic was estimated to reach $9.0 billion and China $6.8 billion. Gower Street announced that revised projection on April 23, just five days after members of Hollywood’s Writers Guild of America voted to strike and nearly three months prior to the Actors’ strike also coming into effect.
Following a summer fueled by triumphant Hollywood hits Barbie and Oppenheimer as well as a stronger than usual summer season in China, Gower Street revised its 2023 Projection up to $34.5 billion in September, with Domestic raised to $9.2 billion, International (excluding China) to $17.0 billion, and China to $8.3 billion, now taking into account a much-changed Q4 release-calendar, impacted by the strikes. This brought the International’s projection (excluding China) to within one percent of the final result.
Likewise Domestic remained with one percent of the final result. However, a disappointing Golden Week holiday period in October in China meant that that market was, once again, the biggest challenge to accurately predict.
Within the International market the three key regions all made year-on-year gains. Europe, Middle East and Africa delivered just shy of $9.0 billion, a +25 percent gain on 2022 but, in-line with Global and International results, was -15 percent behind the 2017-2019 average. The EMEA region accounted for 26.5 percent of Global box office, a slight dip from 27.7 percent in 2022. Asia Pacific (excluding China) is estimated to have made a more modest gain of +9 percent year-on-year to $5.5 billion.
With China included the region accounted for 38.9 percent of Global sales, up from 35.6 percent in 2022, but this was fueled by China’s surge from 16.3 percent in 2022 to 22.8 percent in 2023. Without China the region looks to have actually fallen from 19.3 percent to 16.1 percent of Global sales. This is in part due to more modest year-on-year gains in some key markets, such as Japan, which had seen stronger recovery in the previous year. Latin America is estimated to have delivered $2.66 billion, a +32 percent gain compared to 2022 and a modest -8 percent deficit against the 2017-2019 average.
Excluding India (for which Gower Street/Comscore do not have complete tracking) the top 15 International markets are estimated to be: China ($7.71 billion), Japan ($1.48 billion), UK/Ireland ($1.36 billion), France ($1.35 billion), Germany ($1.01 billion), South Korea ($0.97 billion), Mexico ($0.94 billion), Australia ($0.67 billion), Italy ($0.55 billion), Spain ($0.54 billion), Brazil ($0.47 billion), Netherlands ($0.36 billion), Russia ($0.33 billion), Saudi Arabia ($0.25 billion), and Argentina ($0.21 billion).
Although there were points in the year when a number of major International markets, including China, Japan and Germany, were tracking ahead of their pre-pandemic three-year averages the only top 15 market to finish 2023 ahead of its 2017-2019 average was The Netherlands (+3 percent).
There were however strong signs that global audience levels had returned to pre-pandemic levels in the summer, with both July (+17 percent) and August (+one percent) posting business tracking ahead of the 2017- 2019 averages for those months globally.
July was also the first post-pandemic month to witness the Domestic, China, and International (excluding China) markets all outperform their 2017-2019 average simultaneously (+10 percent, +7 percent, and +53 percent, respectively). This showed that, where a competitive release calendar and attractive content were on offer, the audiences were there.