• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 9, 2025

At the end of the summer, yearly season-to-date box-office revenue was pacing at around 15% below that of a year ago. The late-year recovery was the good news.

The bad? None of those top-performing films were original films. Sequels, near-sequels and, previous movies of a year ago, broadway musical adaptations, and big-time fantasy/adventure sequels were the again the big stars for U.S. movie theatre business.

Not only was there no true original film to make the top-ten-grossing movies -- no original even cracked the top 20.

So that “whew!” you heard may yield only limited relief. Just cherish that “Moana 2” (sequel) “Wicked" ( broadway musical, "The Wizard of Oz"), and “Inside Out 2” (sequel), and “Deadpool and Wolverine” (sequel) did as well as they did.

Can we get to where the growth of the business is back on similar trajectory to that of the pre-pandemic 2019 year and before? The $8.6 billion is still down 25% from 2019’s $11.4 billion

After a full five-year period, when does the premium streaming overhang finally fade -- to black or whatever?

And more importantly, do original films need to be a part of that growth? Perhaps we just need more movies to come with titles like “Even More Despicable... Me” or “Deadpool and Wolverine”: The Golden Bachelors.”

For sure, the 2023 season was beset with strike delays forcing a number of movies to move into 2024 for their openings -- especially the second six months period of the year.

But again, we wonder how to get breakout original hits. In 2023, in addition to “Barbie,” the other monster hit that offered fresh content was, of course, “Oppenheimer.”

But no one is thinking of making a sequel to that What would they call it, anyway -- “Oppenheimer 2: The Apology”?

It would probably bomb.

Barry Friedman contributed to this column.