‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,’ ‘Joker 2’ and More Fall Movies Aim to Sustain Summer’s Box Office Momentum (2024)

Cinema operator Rick Roman, who runs Crowne Point Theatre in Elizabethtown, Ky., thinks of multiplexes like buffets. “You can’t just have a main course,” he says. “You need salads and desserts too.”

With his culinary metaphor, Roman is suggesting that cinemas need a little of everything on their marquees to thrive. As it happens, he and his fellow exhibitors are enjoying a late-summer revival as audiences feast on the gamut of genres, from superhero adventures (“Deadpool & Wolverine”) and animation (“Despicable Me 4,” “Inside Out 2”) to disaster epics (“Twisters”), horror (“Longlegs”) and book adaptations (“It Ends With Us”).

Of course, there were misfires in between, such as Kevin Costner’s Western “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1” (with “Chapter 2” subsequently pushed from its Aug. 16 release date), Sony and Apple’s big-budget romantic comedy “Fly Me to the Moon” and Lionsgate’s “Borderlands” video game adaptation. But the mood around movie theaters is more jubilant these days than it was in May, when would-be blockbusters like “The Fall Guy,” “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and “IF” failed to ignite popcorn season at the box office.

“I’m having a good summer,” says Roman, who notes that Crowne Point Theatre began the period with revenues down 18% from 2023 but saw the deficit shrink to 8% by early August. “We’ve had movies that cover all demographics.”

Despite the season’s delayed surge, overall domestic revenues are 16% behind last year and 28% behind 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, according to Comscore. So Hollywood studios and theater owners are banking on audiences showing up for the diverse lineup of films into the fall and helping to close the stubborn year-to-date gap. A robust autumn at the movies will offset any shortage around the holiday season, which is lacking something on the order of a “Star Wars,” “Avatar” or superhero sequel to close out the year. Instead, “The Lion King” prequel “Mufasa” and “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” are scheduled around Christmas. But will animated fare have the mass appeal needed to bring in men and women, young and old, during what has traditionally been the busiest time of year for moviegoing?

“A number of films could cross over and become [four]-quadrant movies. That’s what the industry needs,” says David A. Gross of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. Meanwhile, he adds, “the gap in 2023 box office should continue to narrow through the rest of the year.”

On the immediate horizon, box office watchers are optimistic about “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Sept. 6), the sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 horror comedy that reunites Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara and adds “Wednesday” favorite Jenna Ortega to the mix. There’s also excitement for “Joker: Folie à Deux” (Oct. 4), the follow-up to 2019’s billion-dollar blockbuster with Joaquin Phoenix as Batman’s notorious nemesis and Lady Gaga as his accomplice, Harley Quinn. Rounding out the fall slate: Paramount’s animated “Transformers One” (Sept. 20), Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot” (Sept. 27), Sony’s comic book three-quel “Venom: The Last Dance” (Oct. 25) and Paramount’s gruesome horror spinoff “Smile 2” (Oct. 18).

“Since the strikes last year, we’ve been projecting year-over-year declines every month through September,” says Eric Wold, a senior media analyst with B. Riley Securities. “But we’ve been getting more confident since ‘Inside Out 2’ and ‘Deadpool & Wolverine.’”

Wold says he’s encouraged by consumer spending habits. Major chains like AMC Theatres and Cinemark report that patrons have been swiping their credit cards for concessions and premium surcharges for Imax or Dolby screens, inflation be damned. This indicates that entertainment value, not finances or fears of catching COVID, are determining whether people go to the movies, he says.

“There’s no economic concern,” Wold says. “It’s about the slate.”

Christopher Escobar, owner of Plaza Theatre in Atlanta, believes the relevance of movie theaters doesn’t just depend on having new films to offer. As exhibitors saw with “Barbenheimer,” and more recently the hype around immersive 4DX screenings of “Twisters,” it’s important to make these big-screen debuts feel like can’t-miss cultural happenings.

“There’s a perception that it’s all about having new releases. But it’s not like studios can just say, ‘Here’s a movie,’ and that’s it,” says Escobar. “It’s about creating awareness. We do a lot of work to engage the audience and test their interests. Usually, the film’s marketing isn’t enough.”

To that end, theater operators have been leaning into themed memorabilia — like popcorn buckets in the shape of a memory orb from “Inside Out 2” or Wolverine’s wide-open mouth from “Deadpool & Wolverine” — to hook audiences. They’ve also been filling their lobbies with Instagram-worthy displays and posters touting the latest blockbuster.

“Creating an experience that’s not just sitting in the movie theater but engaging with in-person touch points and pop-ups is more memorable for people,” says Kristen Schiele, an associate marketing professor at USC Marshall School of Business. “It creates a fear of missing out.”

This time last year, release calendars were upended by Hollywood’s labor strikes. So already, fall looks brighter. But there’s still a worrying decline in wide releases. So far, 58 films have debuted nationwide in 2024 compared with 70 at the same points in 2019 and 2018, according to Comscore. Yet exhibitors like Roman say it ultimately comes down to quality over quantity.

“It’s not the number of movies. It’s about the number of movies that people want to see,” says Roman. “Studios can make all the movies they want, but if people don’t want to see them, it doesn’t help us.” At the moment, he says, things are looking up: “Right now, there are movies that people want to see.”