When looking at the box office performance of 2023’s major blockbusters, it’s hard not to feel a little bit overwhelmed and nostalgic.
Compared to 2019, in which nine films crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office, this year has seen only The Super Mario Bros.
Movie crossing that historic threshold.
Beyond the standalone success of The Super Mario Bros.
Movie, the state of Hollywood’s blockbuster filmmaking seems to be fairly dire; at the year’s halfway point, major temples such as Fast X, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and specifically The Flash came in well below expectations.
However, looking at the success and failure of each individual sequel yields a different story and one that has a much brighter implication for the future of the industry.
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