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Summer box office numbers dropped double digits from last year, but a Labor Day surge for Deadpool and Wolverine has injected some life into the industry heading into the fall. For more on the state of the box office, we want to welcome in Gitesh Pandya, box office guru, founder, and editor. Gitesh, always good to see you.

Great to be here.

So let's start big picture, uh, summer box office, Gitesh. Crunch the numbers for us. How did we do versus last year?

Well, we're technically down from last year, which sounds bad, but however, May was the biggest reason for that. May was down versus last year because we didn't have the biggest movies because of the strikes last year that went almost to the end of last year. A lot of films were delayed. So this year, the first quarter, the spring, very, very bad. Go and that sort of held over into May, didn't really jump back up the way the summer box office normally does because the content wasn't there. We didn't have the big blockbuster. So pure apples to apples comparison.

It's not pure, but once we got the adrenaline going, that's the beginning of June, it's been gangbusters in June, July, and August. So we are up big right now during this current period with two movies breaking $600 million each. That never really happens.

Which are those two?

Well, there's Inside Out 2. This is from Disney and Pixar. Huge movie just passed $650 million domestic. It's also over $1.6 billion worldwide. It is the number one animated movie of all time. Nobody expected that to happen. It was expected to be big, but not this big. And then you have Deadpool and Wolverine. This is from the Fox part of the Disney library getting into the MCU. Again, it's an R-rated film, the first time Marvel's doing this at least under the Disney umbrella. Huge hit over $1.26 billion worldwide so far, more of an American skew, it's more of a 48-52 skew versus international. Uh, Inside Out 2 did much better proportionally internationally, but this is a big comeback for Marvel and for Pixar. These are two giant Disney silos that were underperforming for a couple of years, and now this year, both of them did overperformed. And now we're waiting on Disney proper to have a big hit, which will be later this year, Thanksgiving. They've got Moana 2. Should be a big hit, but we'll see on that. But Disney really leading the way this summer.

Let me ask you, when we talk about Deadpool and Wolverine being a real hit, how does that compare and contrast to, let's say, a mega hit like Barbie last summer?

Well, it's funny you should mention that because they'll both end at the same level. You would never compare these two films, but both of them, I mean, that one did over $600 million last summer, and then this one already passed by $605 million for Deadpool and Wolverine. It's on its way to maybe $625, $630 million of a finish, pretty much same as Barbie. Uh, overseas maybe not as much, but still a huge, huge hit. It's an R-rated ultra-violent movie, and it's a little bit of a shift for the MCU. So the big test was, will that audience come out? And it's bigger than the last Deadpool movie, so it's even bigger than what this franchise normally does.

All right, R-rated ultra-violent, that's what's working in the theaters. Let me ask you this. Uh, what we talked about what worked, what didn't? What I mean, I don't want your flop, but maybe what underwhelmed.

Right. Well, you know, part of that was going back to like I said the month of May. Normally that's the summer kickoff point. We had the Fall Guy, action comedy from Universal, kicking off the summer, the first weekend of May, didn't really do big numbers, didn't even hit $100 million domestic. Uh, that's sort of standard for the American movie industry. And then Memorial Day weekend, huge time for giant tentpole expensive movies to come out. Hollywood took a gamble on Furiosa, the Mad Max prequel movie. That one underperformed, a big budget flop for Warner Brothers, just didn't really work in May. So those are two films that we expected more from, and they're action, and they've got either stars or a brand, so they should work on paper, but really disappointed.

I want to get you in there in this, Gitesh. When you think bigger picture question, when you think about the box office industry, what does that actually look like going forward? Do you ever get back to what it was pre-COVID?

So we're not at the pre-pandemic level, but I think that what we've seen this summer is a good sign for the future. Uh, and it's all across different genres. So we were firing on all cylinders this summer. Animation was hot, superheroes, action, horror was doing well, even romance doing well, sci-fi. So all the different genres are working. People are going out to the movies to see theaters. It's not just one studio leading the way, it's not just one genre leading the way. Everything is sort of coming back in there, and it really comes down to the content. Content is king. Do the studios have good movies to come out with and can they market it well? And one thing that we've seen as far as a trend goes, this continues over the last couple of years, the brands, the sequels, the prequels, those are the ones leading the way. People are looking at all the content, and some of the more original content, I'll wait and watch that at home, the big brands, the big sequels, the ones that take advantage of the big screen experience, let's go out and see it in theaters. Even though ticket prices are higher than ever, even though premium prices go up to almost $30 a ticket here in New York City for certain films on IMAX, people are paying it for the right big experience and brands.

All right. Well pay up, Gitesh. Always good to see you, my friend. Thank you.

Great to see you too. Thanks.