CIVIL WAR opening | 2024 release date changes | April 12 to 14, 2024 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: April 12 to 14, 2024
1) Civil War opening
- This is an excellent opening for a dystopian thriller. These movies average $12.6m on their first weekend. Pending final numbers on Monday, this start is double that average. Critics' reviews are strong. Audiences are giving the film a B- CinemaScore, which is a fair rating, but this kind of story is going to divide moviegoers. It’s a natural reaction to the experience and it should be expected:
Dystopian thrillers are generally set in futuristic worlds that look very different from contemporary life. They use a lot of special effects and science fiction to tell their stories. Civil War is doing the opposite: It looks like right now.
The film is bending the genre into something contemporary and relatable. The story is not directly partisan, but it’s provoking partisan feelings. It's a fine balance to strike. Audiences are emotionally engaged, and that’s impressive for a thriller.
2) 2024 release date changes
- During last week's CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas — the annual industry get-together for studios, producers and theater owners — a number of release date changes were announced.
Two more series titles were pushed back to 2025 (The Bad Guys 2/DreamWorks animation, and Saw XI). Two genre pics also moved back (Wolf Man/Blumhouse horror, and The Amateur/espionage thriller), while an indie series film moved into 2024 (MaXXXine, the last of the X horror trilogy from Ti West). The release counts look like this now:
- We still expect the total number of 2024 wide releases to finish at approx. 125, and we still expect to pick up a couple more series films before the end of the year (there are always one or two movies that turn into hits and spawn a new series), so the net effect of these changes is… no change.
- Currently, the remaining 2024 lineup includes:
May through August: The Fall Guy, Planet of the Apes, Mad Max Furiosa, Garfield, Bad Boys, Inside Out, A Quiet Place, Horizon 1 & 2, Despicable Me, Twisters, Deadpool & Wolverine and The Crow, among others.
September through year-end: Beetlejuice, Transformers, Joker, Smile, Venom, Gladiator, Wicked, Lord of the Rings, Moana 2, Mufasa: The Lion King/live-action, and Sonic the Hedgehog, et al.
- As strong as the remaining lineup is, comparisons to pre-pandemic years will continue to be tough. During the same May-to-December period, earlier years had titles like The Lion King, Frozen, Jurassic, Jumanji, Despicable Me, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Mission: Impossible, It, and Transformers, et al.
In the end, what’s going to make 2024 is not the sequels or series. During the last 15 years, these powerful lineups have become par for the course. The difference will be whether we have one or two break-out surprises. That’s what made 2023.
In 2023, Super Mario, Barbie and Oppenheimer combined for $3.8 billion, or 19.3% of Hollywood’s worldwide BO. Somewhere in 2024, we’ll need one or two over-performers like that to stay on pace.