Movie receipts set to total just $7.35 billion in 2022 – 33% lower than they were just before COVID

Hits like “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick” may have helped boost box office sales in 2022, but they didn’t rescue the industry from a lackluster year.

New estimates show the domestic box office is set to finish around $7.35 billion for 2022down 33 percent from 2019, when ticket sales grossed more than $11 billion.

While the number is still up 68 percent from 2021, many Americans have once again turned to their streaming services to avoid having to leave the house.

While the COVID-19 pandemic may be to blame for some of the low profits, many within the entertainment industry seem to believe that a lack of desirable results is the biggest cause for concern.

Movie ticket sales over Christmas weekend totaled $86 million from Friday to Sunday according to ComScore, nearly 70 percent less than in 2021 when “Spider-Man: No Way Home” topped the list. The lists.

‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ managed to come out a winner over the weekend, however, it grossed $56 million over the holiday weekend.

Even the production company behind the biggest domestic movie of the year, “Top Gun: Maverick” ($718 million), had its problems.

“We’re still coming out of the COVID haze,” Brian Robbins, CEO of Paramount Pictures, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

“There are a couple of movies where we barely made it to the finish line,” Robbins said.

The studio still managed to claim five of the top 25 spots on the domestic box office chart for 2025 with ‘Maverick,’ ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 2’ ($190M), ‘Smile’ ($105M), ‘The Lost City’ ($105 million) and ‘Scream’ ($81 million).

Despite those numbers, the Paramount executive said he believes current production has yet to regain the full scope of potential customers in the post-pandemic world.

“Outside of the big tentpole, genre movies and some family movies, I don’t think we’ve seen audiences come back completely,” Robbins said.

Robbins may also have been weighing the uninspiring performances of some non-traditional star power movies that flopped.

Margot Robbie, Christian Bale and John David Washington’s ‘Amsterdam’ ($14 million), directed by David O’Russell, lost millions after costing more than $80 million and despite a litany of co-stars, including Rami Malek, Robert De Niro. , Anya Taylor-Joy, Taylor Swift, Michael Shannon.

Similarly, Robbie’s “Babylon,” directed by Damien Chazelle, made a shockingly low $3.5 million in its opening weekend over the Christmas break.

Brad Pitt, Jean Smart and Tobey McGuire star alongside Robbie in the director’s film ‘La La Land’, which cost 110 million dollars to make.

One of the top earners of the year was the Walt Disney Company, which earned $1.7 billion domestically from ‘Wakanda Forever’ ($427 million), ‘The Way of Water’ ($279 million) and ‘Doctor Strange. in the Multiverse of Madness’. ($411 million).

However, the same company also suffered heavy losses on the animated bill with ‘Strange World’ ($35 million), which lost an estimated $100 million, and ‘Lightyear’ ($226 million), which had a production budget of $200 million.

‘Lightyear’s’ box office numbers may have evened out after the film found itself in the midst of controversy surrounding Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.

The film originally featured a kiss between two female characters that was briefly removed and then reinstated by Disney executives.

Just behind Disney in the category of box office winners was Universal Pictures, which earned $1.6 billion domestically from sequels ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ ($376M), ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ ($369M ).

Jordan Peele’s latest foray into the horror-thriller category, ‘NOPE,’ ranked 14th on the list of highest-grossing films with $114 million.

Alternatively, Billy Eichner’s gay comedy ‘Bros’ made Universal just $11 million domestically after costing $22 million.

Paramount Pictures was third on the list with $1.3 billion, followed by Warner Bros. Pictures with $934 million and Sony with $854 million.

A disappointing year for Warner Bros., which took more than half of its domestic box office earnings from ‘The Batman’ ($369M) and ‘Black Adam’ ($168M).

Warner Bros. also released “Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets” in April for just $95 million, well below previous films in the Harry Potter universe.

In all, only 71 films received a full “wide release” in North America in 2022.

According to ComScore, the average domestic box office gross for a film in 2022 was just over $100 million.

Netflix and Rian Johnson’s ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery’ was given the ‘best of both worlds’ in 2022 after a limited theatrical release in November and a debut on the streaming service in December.

The film, which stars Daniel Craig, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monae, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn and Edward Norton, opened in theaters for just one week in less than 700 theaters, but managed to gross $13 million.

Other studios skipped the limited release and went straight to streaming services.

Hulu released “Prey,” the latest installment in the “Predator” franchise, while Pixar and Disney debuted “Turning Red” directly on Disney+ in March.