The Biggest Lesson the Studios Can Take from the 2023 Box Office

By Dustin Rowles | Film | December 29, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | December 29, 2023 |

The two biggest films of 2023 were Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and while the takeaway from that might be, “IP still works!” that’s not the biggest lesson, nor is “Untapped (or relatively untapped) IP still works!” Don’t get me wrong: IP is incredibly helpful, and so is a novel approach to traditional material.

But honestly, the 2023 box office is about one thing: Budget. Hits and duds were less about the box office and more about the budget. There wasn’t a lot of celebrating over the $700 million worldwide box office of Fast X, but Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse made $690 million and was considered a smash. The difference? Fast X cost over $300 million to make while Spider-Verse cost $100 million. See also, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, a dud that made $567 million on a $291 million budget, while John Wick 4 ($440 million on a $100 million budget) was huge. One of the biggest disappointments of the year, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny earned $383 million, but its budget was $300 million. Meanwhile, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes earned $315 million on a $100 million budget (several of these examples, by the way, demonstrate what a great year the relatively small studio Lionsgate has had compared to behemoths Disney and Warner Bros (see also Saw X).

It’s not about original ideas in any of these cases — they’re all sequels or reboots. But the $100 million movies were considered wildly successful and the $300 million were not. Even the three highest-grossing films of the year — Barbie ($145 million), Super Mario Bros. ($100 million) and Oppenheimer ($100 million) had modest budgets compared to, say, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which might have been considered a bigger hit with $476 million on a $100 million budget instead of the $200 million the film spent. Meanwhile, Wonka will probably end its box-office run with around $400 million or more on a $135 million budget, comparable to another film that quietly crushed at the box office in 2023, Meg 2: The Trench ($395 million on a $135 million budget).

Remove the top three films of the year from the equation, however, and probably the biggest success stories of 2023 had everything to do with budget: Five Nights at Freddys ($290 million on a $20 million budget); The Nun II ($268 million on a $38 million budget); and Insidious: The Red Door ($189 million on a $16 million budget). Horror movies work. Even bad ones! Good ones had great years, too (see Evil Dead Rise, Talk to Me, and Cocaine Bear).

It just proves that studios do not have to spend a fortune to make a profit. They also don’t have to make great movies to make a profit, but it helps! Then again, there will still always be exceptions, unfortunately. To wit: One of the year’s best movies was based on existing IP and was made for only $30 million and still failed at the box office with $21 million. I’m convinced, however, that Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret will find a passionate audience in the years to come.

For what it’s worth, it was also quietly a good year for re-releases: Frozen: Sing-a-long ($62 million), Interstellar ($27 million), Toy Story ($27 million), Gravity ($24 million), and The Dark Knight ($22 million), which proves that people still love the theater experience, even when it’s a movie they can watch at home.