Global box office is expected to reach $29 billion in 2023 – analysts

Looking ahead to 2023, Gower Street Analytics predicts the global box office will hit $29 billion, up 12% from 2022 if it stays on track at around $25.8 billion this year. The London-based company estimates sales for 2022 at 23.6 billion US dollars (as of December 10).

If this early forecast is accurate, Gower said the industry would suggest waiting until at least 2024 to fully return to pre-pandemic global levels. The forecast for 2023 is still 27% behind the average of the last three years before the pandemic (2017-2019) at current exchange rates (it will be up to 30% compared to historical rates).

The past year has brought another recovery, including two $1 billion earnings Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic world domination, but also challenges for global hubs, including a deeply depressed China that rules out Marvel films and is expected to close nearly $3 billion in 2022 after 2021; the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which prevented American studios from releasing films in Russia; and an exchange rate rollercoaster that boosted the amount of dollars returned by international spot markets (Gower estimates it was a $1 billion hit). Meanwhile, the calendar had major gaps, exacerbated by a post-production bottleneck that pushed films out of the year. Gower says it was worth more than $1 billion domestically by his estimate alone.

The film technology company bases its 2023 numbers on the current release calendar using its FORECAST service and analyst ratings.

According to Gower, the domestic market is expected to grow by 12% to $8.6 billion in 2023 from $7.65 billion in 2022, but is 25% below the average for the last three years before the pandemic.

Internationally, the regions of Asia Pacific (excluding China) and Latin America are expected to grow by 11-12% from 2022 and decline by around 20% from the pre-pandemic average. The Europe, Middle East and Africa region is expected to rise by around 7% from 2022 and remain 30% below the pre-pandemic average (with Russia being the biggest impact here).

As always, China remains the most difficult market to predict given a lesser-known calendar of early releases and continued uncertainty over access for imported titles. Avatar: The Way of Water officially released today and is seeing an encouraging early game (it costs around $20 million as of 5pm local time and covers the last two days with lighter previews), but the changing Covid policy is being felt. For 2023, Gower expects $5.55 billion for China, up from 2022 but well below 2021.

Here’s a chart from Gower:

Note: The figures in the chart represent US dollar figures at historical exchange rates for years prior to 2022 and at current exchange rates for forecast years (2022-2023).