2019 domestic box office totalled $11.4b - 2nd best of all time but well down on 2018 ($11.9b).

Ticket sales declined by 4.6% to 1.24 billion tickets (vs. 1.31 billion tickets in 2018)

2019 was extremely top heavy but fell short with the mid range hits and some poor scheduling - it witnessed the 2nd lowest ticket sales since 1992 (2017 being the lowest).

2020 is off to a strong start despite looking the weaker year on paper (certainly among the uber hits).

Can 2020 be lit and keep ticket sales from sliding? Will it be 2009 redux - a year that looked weak on paper but over performed? Or will the decline continue?

Discuss/track here.

Looking at the schedule there are a lot of weekends with only 1 opener. Maybe stuff will open wide out of nowhere but this year on paper definitely looks weak. There is no slam dunk 400m+ grosser (WW1984 should be but who knows) but this January is up so far from last year so idk. I guess we will get a better idea by July.

2020 ain't scared of 2019. It's going to play the long game and end up with a respectable box office.

We'll have a lot more spread out box office. And if this year's movies can be good, they can hopefully spawn breakout sequels, even if we only get 1-2 350m grossers this year.

My estimates for final domestic


1917 $130,275,521
Jumanji: The Next Level $301,818,781
Star Wars: The Rise o… $510,396,690
Little Women $118,262,105
Just Mercy $33,455,814
Knives Out $164,796,039
Like a Boss $23,843,588
Frozen II $476,593,219
Underwater $21,138,750
Spies in Disguise $64,068,617

Gosh 2019 was super top-heavy to not be able to match 2018 despite being so stacked by Disney.

EDIT: Although I just realized 2018 had three $600m+ hits while 2019 only had EG with TLK and TROS both disappointing.

Yes because it is so easy to forget that The Incredibles 2 made over $600m. Insane that it seems to have done so with such little fanfare for a hit of that size.

Birds and Sonic should lift February well above last year which is great considering March could be weaker or on par and April will be substantially weaker.

Well, things turned out very differently didn't they....

Just a feeling, we may need to compare to the box office of 1918. Just saw that Mickey (1918) was the top movie that year.

Mickey was the highest-grossing film of 1918, with a worldwide gross of $8 million and made on a budget of $250,000. It was re-released several times selling 41.8 million tickets becoming the biggest movie of the silent era and had ticket sales that weren't surpassed until Snow White in 1938.

Here's an interesting twist, Mickey was not widely shown for more than a year. It was initially perceived as a flop. After about 2 years, a Long Island theater unexpectedly without any film to screen one night needing something and the film maker gave Mickey. It then became a hit nearly 2 years after it's original release. Other theaters pushed to get it after it proved to be a smash.

So strange to see the biggest film of the year not getting widespread release until 2 years after it's planned original release. Wait a second, TGM was delayed two years during a pandemic year of its original planned release date.

Last pandemic before was in 1918...

102 years later but sometimes history finds a way to rhyme.