Nolte: Lousy Movies Drive Box Office Down 21 Percent over Last Year

With the year nearly a third over, the domestic box office is down 21 percent from last year, and last year’s box office stunk.

Box Office Mojo shows the 2024 domestic box office at $1.935 billion as of today, April 23. This same time last year, the domestic box office had grossed $2.449 billion.

Already, 2023 was considered a disappointment. Two full years out of the pandemic, the year still fell 16.2 percent behind 2019, the last full pre-pandemic year.

But this year is shaping up to be a full-blown catastrophe, and despite what the sycophants in the entertainment media tell you, it has nothing to do with the strike or the pandemic or weather or marketing or anything other than what the science tells us: people are falling out of love with the movies. People are rejecting the movies. After some seven years of woke garbage, gay sex, grooming, DEI, and the politicization of absolutely everything, by a margin of 2-to-1, Normal People say the movies are worse today than in past decades.

Last year was the year of Barbie, Super Mario Bros. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Oppenheimer, The Flash, plus another Little Mermaid, another John Wick, another Indiana Jones, another Creed, another Mission: Impossible, another Hunger Games, another Fast and Furious, another Scream, another Transformers… Throw in some Pixar, two Marvels, two DC flicks, and Taylor Swift….

The result? Nineteen percent down from 2019.

This year, we have already had another Dune, another Kung Fu Panda, another Godzilla/Kong, another Ghostbusters, another Mean Girls, another Omen, a Lady Spider-Man, and what should have been a couple of peak weekends from Big Films released in late December: another Aquaman and another Color Purple.

The result? Down 21 percent over 2023, which ended up being down 19 percent over 2019.

The bottom line is that there is no shortage of product… There is only a shortage of product that Normal People want to see.

By my count, there have been close to thirty wide releases already this year. That averages out to nearly two new wide releases each week.

The crybaby box office apologists will say, but there’s no Avengers: Endgame, Toy Story 4, Frozen II, Spider-Man: Far From Home. Top Gun: Maverick or Joker this year like there were in 2019.

To which I will reply…

Exactly! Thank you for making my point! The movies you just listed are movies Normal People wanted to see. So excuse me while I repeat myself: “There is no shortage of product… There is only a shortage of product that Normal People want to see.”

How bad are things at the box office this year? Pretty bad when the current Big Box Office Success Story is Civil War, a movie that’s only managed to gross $49 million WORLDWIDE over two weekends.

Last weekend, we had three new wide releases. Something called Abigail, something called The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and something called Spy x Family Code: White. All three movies combined grossed around $25 million … total. Is that a lack of product or a lack of audience interest?

Hollywood has insulted, demeaned, attacked, condescended to, and alienated half the country, all while attempting to “queer” and groom our kids. This has not only cost the industry audience goodwill but also destroyed the art itself. Movies suck today, and that keeps the other half of the country from showing up.

Even leftists reject this leftist garbage.

The science on that issue is settled.

John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover on Kindle and Audiobook.