March box office down 35% amid lull in film slate
March box office revenue totalled £50.7m — a 35% year-on-year decline, according to the latest figures from Comscore.
Following the steep drop-off during March, total year-to-date box office is now running even with 2024 after it was tracking 15% ahead at the end of February.
The decline was attributed to a tough comparable with Dune: Part Two, which debuted on 1 March 2024 and earned £22.2m during its first month.
Tom Linay, content business director at cinema sales house Digital Cinema Media (DCM), told The Media Leader: “We had nothing this year that could compete with that.”
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy remained the top movie in March, earning an additional £7.5m after an exceptional February. Total gross is £45.8m — more than the original Bridget Jones’s Diary (£42m).
The best-performing new opener was Disney’s live-adaptation Snow White (£7.3m), followed by Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi comedy Mickey 17 (£6.8m). Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller Black Bag placed fourth with £3.3m in earnings.
While Linay said admissions were also down year on year (official figures will be released later this month), box office sales were a particularly difficult comparison because of Dune‘spopularity at more expensive Imax theatres.
He also noted that the UK has not yet had its Easter holiday (which came earlier in 2024), meaning titles like Snow White may perform better in April, when schools are out. In addition, March has been “unseasonably nice”, likely causing potential visitors to steer clear of cinemas.
Mining for a diamond
As DCM CEO Karen Stacey explained on this week’s episode of The Media Leader Podcast, despite the relatively muted March, the ad sales house has seen a substantial 33% year-to-date uptick in revenue thanks to increased attendance figures and renewed enthusiasm among AV planners to use cinema as a launch channel for major campaigns.
But she admitted the consistency of the film slate has remained uneven, comparing a lack of mid-budget releases to missing “grout” relative to the “tiling” of tentpole films.
April should be a better month for both mid- and big-budget releases, however. A Minecraft Movie, which releases today (Friday), is “shaping up to be massive”, according to Linay, who predicted it could drive similar attendance to 2023’s fellow gaming crossover title The Super Mario Bros Movie.
Other “bankable smaller films” in April include Ryan Coogler and Michael B Jordan’s supernatural horror film Sinners, Ben Affleck action/thriller The Accountant 2 and Rami Malek-led spy thriller The Amateur.
Linay offered optimism that such films fill the gap between the spring and busier summer period. The next major release is Marvel’s Thunderbolts, out 1 May.