Hollywood studios and movie theater operators were surely girding themselves coming into the summer movie season: How do you follow up the unprecedented success of last year's "Barbenheimer" phenomenon?
The dual release of Barbie and Oppenheimer in July 2023 created a perfect storm of box office magic, setting a high bar for subsequent summer movie seasons. But as the data rolls in, it's becoming clear that the 2024 summer movie season is carving out its own feel-good ending — albeit with some notable differences from its predecessor.
As data from Attain shows, the 2023 summer movie season saw higher average customer spending compared to the same period in 2024. And it wasn’t all about Barbenheimer. Rather, that phenomenon began building, starting with a slate of highly-anticipated releases that dominated screens last year, including The Little Mermaid (May 26) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (June 2). It all paved the way for the cultural juggernaut that was "Barbenheimer" in July.
“It's hard to compare the massive hype of ‘Barbenheimer’ last summer with any other movie season, even this one, which still is picking up with Deadpool & Wolverine, which opened the weekend of Aug. 2, and a strong opening by Twisters, which arrived July 19," says Madi Bradford, manager of Data Strategy, Measurement & Insights at Attain. Bradford also points out an additional factor affecting this year's performance: "This year's season is also different for another factor, namely, the effects of inflation. People are not just spending as much money on going out to the movies; they're not spending in general as they did in 2023."
Despite the apparent dip in average spending, 2024 has already seen its share of box office triumphs. Kevin McGaw, SVP and head of Marketing at Screenvision, a company specializing in cinema advertising, which is defined as any advertising seen around the theater or playing prior to the movie trailers. “Deadpool & Wolverine scored the best July opening weekend of all time,” McGaw says, noting that the Disney production’s $211 million take beat both starts for Barbie at $162 million and Oppenheimer’s $82 million.
“It was also the highest R-rated movie ever. It's the highest July opening weekend ever," adds McGaw’s colleague, Christine Martino, CRO of National Ad Sales at Screenvision.
As McGaw and Martino tell it, the sense of a wide gap between the 2023 and 2024 summer movie season is overblown. Barbenheimer was truly unusual — two movies that had nothing in common except that they were both critically lauded as “premium, adult” Hollywood films. But that coverage has skewed the way some advertisers’ assessments of this year’s crop of releases. It’s a misconception Screenvision is armed with stats to push back against.
“Just last weekend, we were in fact up 27% over the 3-year average,” Martino says. “Summer as a whole, we’re on-par with the 3 year average as well so [Barbenheimer’s outsized success is a] misconception in the marketplace.”
Also, the success of "Deadpool & Wolverine" goes beyond mere numbers, she adds.
"What I think it really proved was that the ‘Barbenheimer’ model is about gaining traction, which feeds social attention and the cultural moment,” Martino says. “That creates an aura that attracts audiences to theaters. Both Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman were their characters leading up to that film. They entered the press that way. They were in the colors that way. And that captured people’s attention in a unique, entertaining way."
That attention plays out in important ways when a cinema ad, which can be 60 seconds long, compared to a 30-second traditional TV spot or a 15-second CTV ad, notes McGaw.
"These movies create long-tail cultural moments,” McGaw says. “When you think about sports, you think about some of these other moments in time that happen in a win or happen in a matter of minutes or seconds or hours. Movies and movie theaters are all about capturing attention in a way that is different from any other medium. From an advertiser perspective, that means ads that are running before the film starts are more effective and efficient for attaching themselves to audiences’ attention."
While "Barbenheimer" may have been a tough act to follow, 2024 does promise some dual-release excitement before the year is out. Martino points to the upcoming simultaneous release of Wicked and Gladiator that is expected to define the Holiday Season when they hit screens on Nov. 22. In a bid to tap into that “Barbenheimer” magic, industry insiders, as well as some fans, have dubbed it "Wickiator," Martino says.
And much like promotions for Halloween starting in August, the build up for “Wickiator” has already begun.
"As we start to get into the fourth quarter, you're starting to see things like Wicked and Gladiator that are going to be on the same weekend," Martino explains. "The stars of those movies are making sure people are aware right now. Ariana Grande, who stars as Glinda in Wicked, appeared at the Olympics dressed in her character’s pink colors."
This strategic pairing of films caters to diverse audiences, with Wicked appealing to younger, more diverse crowds, while "Gladiator" targets family audiences. If the dual movie release approach pays off again, expect to see a lot more of this counter-programming.
Still, Hollywood — and cinema advertising networks like Screenvision — aren’t pinning all their hopes on novelty. Instead, it’s about the variety of offerings that caters to a younger audience.
Looking ahead, the slate for Q4 2024 and beyond promises to maintain the momentum that started in the latter part of the summer season. Anticipated releases include "Moana 2," "Mufasa," "Venom: Last Dance," "Sonic 3," and "Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim." These films are expected to provide a welcome escape and continue the trend of creating cultural moments that resonate with audiences and advertisers alike.
For media buyers, the state of cinema advertising in 2024 also presents compelling opportunities, despite the rise of streaming and the short window between theatrical and home releases, Martino maintains.
Plus, there was the Hollywood Double Strike of 2023, which, altogether, lasted from May 2 to Nov. 9, when the writers and actors unions’ stopped work amid a drawn out contract dispute. That held back new releases and initially dampened cinema advertising demand.
But by Q2, Martino says, advertiser interest was showing signs of a comeback. For Screenvision, the pitch was simple: we have the younger consumers you covet.
"What we were able to see in that early part of the year was that even without these big blockbuster titles, we were still getting audiences to come. And it's really that Gen Z audience that's there. And I think the important thing to remember about cinema is just how young our audience is. Cinema’s average age is 29. And when you compare that to a linear TV viewer of 60-plus, we really have this mass scale of Gen Z, really 12-to-24 year olds coming through the doors."
McGaw reinforces this point, saying, "Week-in and week-out, there is an audience at scale in cinema. And you think about it, there's a movie for every consumer and there's a consumer for every advertiser. So even these, when you're thinking about Twisters in week three, there's still an audience there when you're thinking about The Bikeriders, a smaller movie about a motorcycle club that stars Tom Hardy and came out in June, still had an audience that was interested and engaged."
The effectiveness of cinema advertising is further bolstered by its performance metrics, says Martino.
During Screenvision’s 2025 Upfront showcase to media buyers in May, Screenvision made a guarantee on movies being able to deliver specific business results.
“If a client cares about foot traffic, we are going to work with them on meeting those numbers, " Maritno says. She points to a new QSR partner that wants to know that by advertising during the movie previews, there are going to be more people coming into their locations.
“We've done those guarantees in the scatter market for advertisers for so long,” Martino says. “And the strength that movies have shown in connecting audiences to a brand in terms of both affinity and performance is something we’re excited to prove.”
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