movies

Franchises are both the lifeblood and bane of Hollywood’s existence. When everything clicks, a series can keep consumers intrigued for years if not decades — James Bond, Batman, Star Wars, Mission: Impossible, Superman. But sooner or later, fatigue sets in and the complaints begin (i.e., what happened to originality?)

The 2024 summer box office was a rare exception. For the first time in recent memory, “franchise” no longer was a dirty word, says one top studio executive. Those big brands helped push year-to-date domestic grosses to more than $5.4 billion as of the weekend of Sept. 6-8, which is still down about 13 percent compared with a year earlier but better than expectations for this point in 2024.

The reversal in fortune began after a rough May that saw The Fall Guy, a potential franchise newbie, spin out at the box office, followed by the blowout of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga ($172  million globally), which had followed the triumphant relaunch of the series with Mad Max: Fury Road ($380 million) in 2015. The one bright spot of May was Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, one of the numerous film properties Disney’s film empire inherited after the larger acquisition of Fox assets in 2019.

Apes was a crucial test in the post-Disney merger, and it passed; the movie grossed nearly $400 million globally, enough to fulfill filmmaker Wes Ball’s dream of a new trilogy. Alien: Romulus, released in August, was another successful test of the 20th Century-Disney marriage (the pic has grossed north of $300 million globally, the second-best showing of the franchise behind 2012’s Prometheus, not adjusted for inflation).

The overall box office rebound began in early June with Sony’s fourquel Boys: Ride or Die. The pic opened well ahead of expectations in a foreshadowing of better days to come. In mid-June, Inside Out 2 put Pixar back on the map with a record-shattering opening on the way to becoming the top-grossing animated film of all time ($1.675 billion globally) and the No. 8 biggest film of all time, sandwiched between Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.926 billion) and Jurassic World ($1.672 billion). Paramount extended its Quiet Place franchise with Day One ($261 million), while Universal and Warner Bros. spun off Twisters with fresh stars to the tune of $366 million.

“Nearly every studio saw several summer releases over perform box office expectations across different ratings and genres throughout the rest of the summer,” says box office analyst Comscore Paul Dergarabedian. “Disney takes the headline with Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Alien Romulus. Universal found success with Despicable Me 4 and Twisters. Paramount saw great returns from A Quiet Place: Day One and recovered from an iffy opening weekend for IF to see that title leg out to $100 million-plus. Sony bookended the summer with hits like Bad Boys Ride of Die, which fell just short of $200 million domestic, and the late summer hit It Ends with Us.”