What a difference a year makes.
Last year at the start of CinemaCon, we were questioning the existence of theatrical after a dead first quarter, that had the domestic box office dragging -11% behind 2024 (this is all before A Minecraft Movie turned the entire marketplace around, literally spiking its advance tickets as the industry walked the slot machines of Caesar’s Palace, ultimately a near $1 billion global grossing film).
This year, the domestic box office stands at $2.26B, the first time that it’s ever been since 2019, +23% over the same Jan. 1-April 12 period a year, per Comscore. Wide releases (movies opening in more than 1,000 theaters) hit 162 last year, ahead of pre-Covid numbers like 2019 when there were only 138. More people are going to the movies this year with admissions at 154M, +16% over last year, according to EntTelligence.
But there’s
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