Ever since the movie theater industry was gutted due to COVID-19, with many of the world’s cinemas being shut down in March until this fall, we’ve known 2020 was going to be a record bad year for the industry. But with the final 2020 box office numbers being reported, we can fully see just how the pandemic destroyed an industry. And it’s maybe uglier than you were thinking.
According to reports, in 2020, the worldwide box office earned approximately $11.5 billion. This marks a 72% drop from the previous year. In North America, the box office came in at $2.3 billion last year, about 80% less than 2019. And for the first time ever, China became the global box office champion, earning $2.7 billion, marking a 70% drop.
So, let’s put this into context.
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As was pointed out on social media, last year’s global box office earning of $11.5 billion would be less than what just Disney earned in theaters in 2019 ($13.2 billion). And if you just look at the North American box office total ($2.3 billion), that’s well below the global total that just “Avengers: Endgame” earned in 2019 ($2.78 billion).
All that to say, there’s no way that people could have predicted just how bad 2020 would be for the box office and the film industry, as a whole. But even when folks started to predict just how far things would drop, a global decrease of 72% seemed impossible. Now, as we enter 2021, with studios continuing to hold back major releases until the spring (for now) and Warner Bros. releasing its slate on HBO Max (we’ve seen how this affected “Wonder Woman 1984”), who knows how much 2021 will recover? It has to be better than last year. Right?
As for the box office champ of 2020, that distinction goes to the Chinese film, “The Eight Hundred,” which earned more than $461 million worldwide. As for US releases, we have “Bad Boys for Life” at the #2 spot, earning more than $426 million worldwide. There’s no way anyone would have predicted those films would be the 2020 winners, given how we were expected to have two Marvel Studios films and a ‘Wonder Woman’ sequel. Yet, here we are.
Here’s to 2021 and recovery for the film industry. Because we all know the industry can’t survive another year like 2020.