Global box office expected to reach $32 billion by 2023 – CinemaCon

Gower Street Analytics revised its forecast from last December and raised its estimate for the global box office in 2023. The London-based company now expects global sales of $32 billion this year. The updated projection comes as the industry gathers in Las Vegas on the eve of CinemaCon and such The movie Super Mario Bros is poised to become the first global sales of $1 billion in 2023.

If the $32 billion figure holds, it would represent an improvement of about 23% over 2022, while still being 20% ​​less than the average for the three years before the pandemic (2017-2019).

Gower estimates that the international box office will reach $23 billion ($6.8 billion from those Chinese representatives). This would be a 25% increase compared to 2022.

China rebounded more than expected in the first quarter after a disappointing 2022. The Lunar New Year was solid, and two Japanese films recently performed well (suzume And The first slam dunk). However, concerns remain about a general lack of audience enthusiasm for Hollywood titles, which despite a steady stream of release dates have not reached desired levels.

Gower notes that the $6.8 billion full-year forecast brings China back to levels consistent with 2021 (at current exchange rates), but is based almost entirely on how strongly the actual numbers for the first quarter are exceeded. The analyst firm is keeping its Q2-Q4 estimates relatively stable.

Excluding China, overseas markets are expected to reach $16.2 billion. A key driver was a better-than-forecast first quarter, led by the remaining business of Avatar: The Way of Water, as well as a solid release calendar, click to local titles, and a slew of non-US films that extend far beyond their home markets (especially Japanese anime). Germany is also recovering.

Foreign markets beat Gower’s original estimate by 23% in January, 10% in February and +2% in March. There has been a lot of momentum lately The movie Super Mario Bros which has earned $437.5 million as of Sunday.

Likewise, the household gets a boost from Super Mario, also over $430 million. The first quarter came in slightly below Gower’s original guidance (by -$100 million), but a growing release schedule prompted the film tech company to raise its previous full-year estimate for North America to $9 billion, a 20% improvement compared to corresponding until 2022.

Gower goes on to note that around 13% of its increased 2023 guidance is due to exchange rate fluctuations between December 2022 and the end of March this year.