A tweet from the National Association of Theater Owners (the other N.A.T.O.) has put some of the blame of this year’s soft box-office on the lack of wide theatrical releases.
Posted last week, the tweet indicates that the number of films released on over 2,000 screens for the year-to-date is 61 releases, that’s only 62.8% of the number at the same point in time in 2019 – which was 97 releases.
They next indicate that box-office for the year to date is $5.58 billion, which is only 65.95% of the box-office at the same point in time in 2019 ($8.46 billion). Thus the infered correlation is if the number of wide releases were on par, the box-office would likely be too.
To further this, they list the average haul per title of the year to date to be $91.48 million – which is actually up from the $87.2 million of the pre-pandemic era.
The numbers come as this year’s Thanksgiving box-office is still considerably down on the pre-pandemic era with analysts citing various factors for this.
Movies released on 2,000+ screens YTD:
2019 – 97
2022 – 61 (62.8%)Box office from those movies YTD:
2019 – $8.46 billion
2022 – $5.58 billion (65.95%)Average per title YTD:
2019 – $87.2 million
2022 – $91.48 millionMore movies, please.
— National Association of Theatre Owners (@NATOcinemas) November 15, 2022
Source: Twitter
