In 2019, the box office gross in North America stood at a healthy $11.2 billion. Roughly five years and a pandemic later, the industry is far from returning to those levels.
Using figures from The Numbers, Statista charted the US's annual box office gross from 1995 to 2024.
The country's box office performance in 2024 is 24 percent worse than it was in 2019 β and that gap grows to more than 35 percent when ticket price inflation is taken into account.
In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, box office earnings plummeted to around $2 billion. Four years on, that number has only climbed up by about $6 billion.
The pandemic isn't the only factor that made this a bad year for the movie market; inflation and the Hollywood writers strike also played a role.
Via Statista.