We look ahead at what’s in store for the second half of 2024 and ponder whether there are any must-see, sure-fire hits…
Having recently looked at the state of the cinema industry and whether the big screen experience is on its last legs, now seems like a good time to look ahead to the rest of 2024 and see just what tentpole blockbusters are coming. Can any of them pull in huge numbers and give a much-needed injection of box office? Are any of the studios really catering to what the masses want?
So far, 2024 has been a disaster. Dune: Part Two might have been critically lauded and loved by most fans who watched it, but given the huge costs of making the movie, its box office was decidedly average. Given how acquired a taste the Dune lore is, that’s probably impressively mainstream given such a cultish source material. However, it’s still well short of the billion-dollar level that most films of that cost need to be aiming for.
Sure, this only exemplifies how misguided that formula is and how the shifting landscape needs to see a huge shift to lower budgets, but Dune 2 is also the highest-grossing film of the year so far. The highest-grossing film of the year and most would judge the box office return as okay, maybe ‘pretty good’ at best.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ranks second in the worldwide box office for 2024, with half a billion bucks in the coffers, but again, falling well below what the studio would deem a success. Here’s an issue with both films. They’re way too expensive given the appeal of the respective franchises. Dune has always been niche and even under the guidance of Denis Villenueve, the franchise will have an earning ceiling that’s lower than the cost of the film would require it to be.
Creature features like Godzilla have seen a progressive decline in box office in recent years as the novelty of a reboot surge in Dinos, Kaiju and Kongs has worn off. As Godzilla Minus One proved though, if you aim for the audience that still likes those films and make something incredible, on a fraction of the budget, you can have a hit on your hands. Below these top two, for the most part, the big tentpole films have bombed massively, including The Fall Guy, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
With Bad Boys: Ride or Die kicking the box office sunny season into full gear, it feels once again like a film that is 5-10 years too late. Covid and the post-SAG/WGA strike lull have certainly not helped matters, nor has a worldwide economy that’s left film fans really having to prioritise exactly what they’ll pay a ticket price for. A box office shot in the arm might be needed, but Bad Boys 4 won’t be the answer. At $100 million, it’s comparatively smaller in scale than things like Furiosa, but most analysts would still struggle to look at it with any degree of optimism. Just which upcoming film could potentially excite the masses? Is there even a tentpole film that will get close to the billion mark?
There’s no surefire bet, but a few of the more likely to have analysts in relatively bright mood include Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. Even so, Pixar isn’t the money-printing certainty it once was, particularly in an age when Disney’s big-screen films are destined for streaming within a matter of months. If you’re paying a Disney+ subscription, you want your money’s worth and most people don’t mind waiting a few months until something drops on the streamer.
Hugh Jackman is so synonymous with Wolverine and someone who feels almost irreplaceable as the character but his last major outing as Logan was in 2017. It capped off a great run of mostly success where Jackman was effectively the star turn in a massive ensemble franchise (that also included two previous Wolverine centric films). 7 years is a long time in this business, especially given things like COVID-19 have happened in the meantime.
Most fans who grew up with Jackman’s Logan are now all grown up and those who started from the very beginning in the year 2000 are probably staring down the barrel of a beer belly and a trip to Turkey to get bleach-white veneers and a new hairline. Are youngsters under 25 that into Wolverine et al? The R-rating for Deadpool and Wolverine’s opus will appeal to fans of the first two Pool films, but this doesn’t feel like a billion-dollar audience. Deadpool 2 smashed $785 million at the box office back in 2018 on a budget comparatively smaller than many of the big Marvel equivalents.
It’ll be hard to match that but the trouble arises due to the significant increase in cost from the second film to the third, reportedly around double the budget of the last one in a franchise which started at a fairly modest 58 million. The gross between the first and second is almost the same though. Budgets are doubling each film but the box office isn’t, and if anything is likely to go down this year. Apart from many things, that brand of snarky humour that people loved so much in 2016 and 2018 isn’t as in vogue these days and Wolverine being placed within that may not feel quite like the Logan the die-hard fans have always enjoyed. Jordan wasn’t bad with a baseball bat, but nothing like his exploits on the basketball court.
Beyond Wolverine, most of the blockbusters are continuations of long-standing franchises and intellectual properties, most of which are way past their glory days. Nothing that’s on the summer and winter lineup looks all that exciting. Not for a miserable old git like me, but even putting myself in the shoes of youngens pouring over the cinema listings, there doesn’t seem anything that looks essential viewing. Borderlands looks quirky enough to potentially capture a wave, but even with the popularity of the video game backing it, that doesn’t necessarily translate to a boost in box office (as proven historically with game-to-film adaptations). In Borderlands’ favour, is a relatively small (yet still likely $100 million at least) budget.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Venom: The Last Dance, and Transformers: One all have reasonable box office potential, but in every case, it’s unlikely they’ll match franchise highs and they’re all at a stage in their respective franchises where audiences are growing weary. How many terrible Venom films do audiences want to watch ironically?
The demise of the comic book genre since the heady heights of the last Avengers movies is clear to see. There have been a few significant successes in the meantime of course, with 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home doing very well but in 2019, it felt like Todd Phillips’ Joker might have figured out a way to keep comic book films bankable. He made a darker, more complex film on a smaller scale, with its modest $60 million budget and committed Joaquin Phoenix performance, leading to a gargantuan billion-dollar gross return.
Joker: Folie à Deux arrives later this year as a prospective box office saviour with a film that takes some wild turns away from the first film and introduces Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga). A macabre musical thriller is certainly going to interest people, but will this capture the zeitgeist like the first film? Probably not and the introduction of a musical side and more descents into the fantastical might actually repel a particular portion of the original film’s audience of young cinephiles. It’ll certainly repel the subsection of incel fans who worshipped the character as a kind of anti-establishment hero. The biggest risk though? It’s the massive increase in budget which sees a potentially divisive film having to at least match the first films billion dollar gross just to be deemed ‘pretty successful.’ Honestly, though, Joker as an appealing cinematic hero is just so 2019.
For me and perhaps many, most of the more interesting projects seem to be smaller-scale films and horror. I’m here for MaXXXine and Nosferatu, but the big tentpole films? Maybe if we were in the last decade. Apart from the decline of the big screen and dire box office prospects, as much as anything it just feels like a crushingly dull selection of ‘event’ movies coming up.
What films are you looking forward to this year? Is there really anything that exciting? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth or hit me up on Instagram @JolliffeProductions…
