Global summer box office totaled roughly $3.53bn, a slight increase from the previous year's $3.52bn but below $4bn expectations. The season was dominated by nostalgia for 2000s-era films, with several remakes, sequels and returns driving performance. Final Destination 6 became the franchise's highest-grosser, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later revival reached about $150m, and a live-action Lilo & Stitch surpassed $1bn. A Freaky Friday follow-up and a Jurassic Park sequel also contributed strong grosses. The overall pattern shows reliance on established IP and generational fandom rather than breakout original tentpoles.
Another post-pandemic summer is over and we have ourselves another reminder that Barbenheimer was a fluke with overall takings down again. With some early hits, such as Lilo & Stitch, some had expected this season's blockbusters to take the industry to the magic $4bn mark (something only achieved once since 2019, thanks to Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy), but that was not to be.
It was a season geared towards those who view the 2000s as a formative cultural period and the bets mostly paid off. In mid-May, the sixth instalment of the Final Destination franchise (which started in 2000 and saw sequels throughout the decade) overperformed, becoming the highest-grossing in the series. In June, Danny Boyle returned to the world of 2002's 28 Days Later with the start of a new trilogy, racking up $150m worldwide, almost double that of the original.
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