Poor old Lionsgate. We sit here and we complain about the non-stop carousel of cape & tights movies and sequels, and when they do try and do something different, it smacks them in the face.
Last month Borderlands was dumped unceremoniously onto PVOD within three weeks. This month they are going to be forced to do it again with Rupert Sanders’ The Crow reboot that now won’t be rebooting anything.
The box office has been terrible, the reviews scathing, so they are cutting their losses and pushing it onto PVOD. It arrives on Friday, September 13th so you can suffer through it at home rather than in the theater. The $50 million budgeted remake made just $18 million worldwide.
Still, things are looking up for them… right? Wrong. Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is their next release and it is tracking for a debut of just $5 million. It is lining up to be a mega-flop. Mel Gibson’s Flight Risk has been pushed out to 2025.
Alexandre Aja’s interesting-looking Never Let Go arrives from Lionsgate at the end of this month, but that is not going to help them too much.
In general, revenue from the overall global box office market is projected to reach $38.9B in 2024, and show growth of around 6.6% per year. This places it currently down from pre-COVID highs but on the right track.
Fewer movies have led to fewer underperforming blockbusters this season, while juggernauts like Deadpool & Wolverine or Inside Out 2 have pushed takings way up.