A year far from boffo

LOS ANGELES• Hollywood movies suffered an unprecedented 80 per cent slump in box office revenue in North America in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic closed movie theatres and studios held back the releases of scores of new films.

Research firm Comscore said in an end-of-year report on Tuesday that the North American box office brought in $2.2 billion in 2020, compared with $11.4 billion for 2019. (All figures in U.S. dollars.)

The 2020 revenue marked an almost 40-year low, according to historical data from Box Office Mojo. The lowest previous take for North American box office receipts was 1981, with a total of $918 million, in a year when Superman II was the biggest film.

Comscore did not release worldwide data for 2020, but Variety said global returns slumped some 71 per cent. The pandemic forced movie theatres to close around the world in mid-March, bringing some small and big chains like AMC Entertainment to the brink of bankruptcy.

Some 274 movies — including blockbusters such as No Time to Die, Top Gun: Maverick and the ninth Fast and Furious action film — were moved to 2021 release dates, the Comscore report says.

That left Sony Pictures cop caper Bad Boys for Life, released in January last year, as the top-earning movie in North America for 2020 with $206 million. In 2019, Avengers:

Endgame ruled the domestic box office with $858 million.

Thriller Tenet from Warner Bros., which had hoped to tempt moviegoers back into theatres in the summer, took in just $58 million in the U.S. and Canada.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with Comscore, said that 2020 revenue — much of it from drive-in venues — was grounds for hope given that some industry observers had feared the figure would be even smaller.

“That should be extremely encouraging to anyone who was worried that movie-going would not come back at all,” Dergarabedian said.

SONY PICTURES By default, Bad Boys for Life — starring Will Smith, left, and Martin Lawrence — was the box office winner for 2020.