Revising its projection from December last year, Gower Street Analytics has increased its forecast for global box office across 2023. The London-based firm now expects worldwide receipts to hit $32B for the year (versus the earlier $29B projection). The update 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, save Avatar 2, 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.
