Sony Pictures Is ‘Optimistic’ About Box Office Recovery: ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ Is Going to Be ‘Just Fine’ (2024)

Sony Pictures Entertainment’s senior management says it remains “optimistic” about the future of cinema, despite a slow start to the North American summer season and industry talk of franchise fatigue.

Speaking on a Sony Group Corporation conference call (on Thursday in Japan, Wednesday in Los Angeles), Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra blamed current box office torpor on three prongs of disruption that have affected movie production over the past five years: competition with streaming; the disruptions and cost increases brought on by the COVID-era; and last year’s writers and actors strikes. Together these have led to fewer films reaching theaters.

“What really is happening is that people got out of the habit of going into theaters. As the marketplace begins to recover in terms of having big films, you’ll see people start to go to theaters again,” said Vinciquerra. “The second half of this year, you’re going to see quite a resurgence. One film will improve the odds of the next film. Starting in July you’ll see every week a big film coming out.”

“Once we get back into the normal cadence of producing films, I think you’re going to see the comeback. We may not get back to pre-pandemic level. It is more difficult to produce a film that generates cultural action within the community but we’re pretty optimistic about the next couple of years,” he said. Consultancy firms such as Gower Street Analytics have forecast a slight year-on-year reduction in global box office in 2024 from $33.9 billion in 2023 to $31.5 billion in 2024.

Vinciquerra also identified changed market conditions in two major box office territories as affecting the studio’s international revenues. China, previously second in size behind North America has seen imported films’ revenues fall to a 15% share. Russia, once among the top five territories, has fallen to zero due to sanctions and the war in Ukraine.

Vinciquerra went on to identify some upcoming highlights, as he sees them. He said that the upcoming “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” film, the fourth in the Bad Boys franchise, is tracking strongly. “We’re pretty sure it is going to be just fine,” he said. He also said that SPE had raised its internal box office projections for “The Garfield Movie” in the last month and that the next “Spider-Man” movie “will do just terrific.” “Bad Boys: Ride of Die” begins its international release from June 5 and arrives in North American cinemas from June 7.

In a rebuttal of the superhero-fatigue argument, Vinciquerra ventured a rare comment about another studio’s content. He suggested that Disney’s Marvel franchise title “Deadpool & Wolverine” could be the first or second biggest film of the year.

As Sony Group Corporation’s management did last week, Vinciquerra damped down speculation about an acquisitive move involving Paramount Global.

“We’re looking for strategic investments that that complement our strategy. We are not going to we’re not going to go outside the strategy that has been enormously successful for us over the past several years [..] our strategy is to have more IP, more products more library to sell. We’re not going to get into other businesses. We’re not going to get into a general entertainment streaming service. We’re not going to be operating other businesses that are outside of the strategy that we’ve defined.”

India, where a takeover-merger with Zee Entertainment Enterprises collapsed in January, still seems just as likely a venue for corporate activity.

“We just announced that our [India] CEO is retiring and we’re looking to replace him very aggressively. We have a laundry list of very good candidates that we can choose from to lead that business, because it’s a great business. The ZEE situation would have been great. It took a very long time to get regulatory approval and, in that time, unfortunately, the ZEE business deteriorated quite substantially,” said Vinciquerra. “We have several other conversations going on right now that could possibly end up in something that would help us in the in the market. But we’re not concerned about our survival there.”

“We have a very large competitor who is merging with another of our large competitors. I’m not sure how the regulatory process will go there, but it will probably take some time, which we think will give us some opportunity in the short term to reestablish and re-energize our business,” said Vinciquerra.

Vinciquerra had strongly positive things to say about Crunchyroll, the anime streaming business that Sony acquired in 2021 and merged with its own Funimation company. “Crunchyroll is going to be a primary driver of growth over the next few years. We have well over 13 million subscribers. We expect that to grow pretty substantially over time on revenue and profit [..] over the next four or five years. We’re very confident that Crunchyroll will be terrific for us and that’s a great collaboration with Aniplex and with Sony Music Japan,” Vinciquerra said.

“Crunchyroll is not distributed substantially in Southeast Asia at this point or in India. We put Crunchyroll on Amazon channels here in the U.S. We’re going to launch in India and several other countries in Southeast Asia very soon in the next couple of months on Amazon channels. Right now we’re building up the inventory of products that we have on Crunchyroll for Southeast Asia,” he said.

He added that animation is likely to contribute two feature films per year for theatrical release, and possibly another for direct to streaming.

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