With the first six months of 2024 in the books, it a natural time to take a quick look at the theatrical box office statistics of various geographic territories during the first half of the year.

As expected, box office was down against 2023 in most countries during the January through June time frame. While Hollywood’s dual labor strikes are partly to blame for a reduced release slate, it appears the number of releases heading to cinemas is trending downward globally for a number of reasons; (1) theatrical releases have become more costly to market (2) streaming services continue scooping up titles that ordinarily would have played in theatres and (3) audiences becoming habituated to watching certain types of movies via streaming services. To be sure, that is a simplification of various challenges the industry is facing.

Keep in mind it’s not always easy to get these figures, nor does every country publish box office figures on a regular or reliable basis. As well, rather than a comprehensive report doing a deep dive on Comscore and Numero data feeds, we’ll look at a small sampling of countries based on the order of market size in declining order.

North America
The forecasts that theatrical box office would crater during the first half of 2024 turned out to be mostly accurate. Given that the 2022 holdover “Avatar: The Way of Water” kickstarted 2023, the annual comps were going to be rough from the jump. Last year’s work stoppages meant a six month gap with a limited number of blockbusters and much fewer releases.

This meant no surprise hits like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” no big comic book titles such as “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and no successful franchise extenders along the lines of “Fast X” and “John Wick 4.” If there’s some good news to be found in the numbers its that North America had at least 25% fewer wide releases in the first half of 2024, but box office through June is down 19% year-over-year – from USD $4.54 billion in 2023 to USD $3.60 billion this year.

The top movies in the North American market so far in 2024 are also some of the top earners in various international territories. “Inside Out 2” from Pixar heads up the list having earned USD $469 million through the end of June. “Dune: Part Two” took in USD $282 million, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” scared up USD $196.3 million, “Kung Fu Panda 4” fought its way to USD $193.6 million and “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” rounded out the top five with USD $168 million.

China
Despite a healthy Chinese New Year moviegoing season, China’s box office is down 9% from 2023 to USD $3.4 billion (CNY 23.9 billion). Nearly 34% of theatrical revenue, USD $1.1 billion (CNY 8.1 billion) came during the eight day Lunar Near Year period.

The Maoyan Research Institute reports the country’s ticket sales are the lowest since 2016 (minus pandemic years). Attendance fell 8.9% during the first six months of 2024 to 550 million. When audiences do head to cinemas, they are predominantly seeing Chinese films with six local productions among the top 10 for the fist half of the year. Last year, there were no imported films in the top 10 during the same time period.

“Yolo,” about an overweight woman who gets into shape by training to box, has been China’s biggest hit so far in 2024, booking USD $492 million (CNY 3.46 billion). “Pegasus 2” is racing to catch up and nearly there with USD $482 million (CNY 3.39 billion).

To put these figures in perspective with imported titles, “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire” was the number six film with USD $134.7 million (CNY 956.4 million). Hayao Miyazaki’s animated Oscar winner “The Boy And The Heron” flew to height of USD $111.4 million (CNY 790.8 million), whereas “Kung Fu Panda 4” made USD $52.5m (CNY 372.6 million) and “Dune: Part Two” came in at USD $49.7m million (CNY 352.6 million), putting them outside the top 10 titles.

Japan
If there was any question why there is so much attention to anime movies lately, look no further than Japan were six out of the top 10 films from the first half of 2024 have been anime releases. The country’s trade bodies don’t release official box office figures until the end of each year, but so far, 15 of the top 20 movies have been local Japanese productions.

Despite being the 27th movie in the franchise, “Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram,” about a high school detective, earned a series record USD $94.4 million (JPY ¥15.19 billion). Last year’s top film in Japan, “The First Slam Dunk,” scored USD $98.6 million (JPY ¥15.87 billion). Another entry from a long running anime franchise, “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle,” about high school volleyball players, bounced to USD $69.3 million (JPY ¥11.16 billion).

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” was the highest-grossing non-Japanese film during the first six months of 2024, earning USD $11.2 million (JPY ¥1.8 billion) since its release in March, eight months after its global bow. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” was technically the only other imported title to crack the top ten in 2024 so far.

United Kingdom & Ireland
The year started out looking pretty good for the UK-Ireland cinema industry with box office up, that’s right up, 9% during the first three months of 2024. After grosses plummeted 21% in the second quarter however, the first half of the year leaves the region down 7% to USD $585.64 million (GBP £451.6 million) compared to 2023’s USD $631 million (GBP £486.6 million).

“Dune: Part Two” topped the territory’s list of box office winners making $51.4 million (GBP £39.6 million), though “Inside Out 2” is closing in at $45.3 million (GBP £34.8 million). The first quarter was aided by indie titles like “One Life” from Warner Bros. made USD $12.7 million (GBP £9.79 million), Studiocanal’s “Wicked Little Letters” posted USD $12.1 million (GBP £9.33 million) and Searchlight’s “All of Us Strangers USD $6.73 million (GBP £5.2 million).

France
The CNC doesn’t report financial box office figures but instead posts admissions and for the first four months of 2024 were decidedly down by double digits. April attendance alone was down over 36% from 2023. While May and June saw moviegoers return to cinemas for positive attendance comps, the number of tickets sold during the first half of 2024 dropped 7.2% year-over-year to 84.5 million.

The decline can surely be attributed to a lack of Hollywood titles. Indeed, French movies accounted for 46.4% of tickets sold during the January to June time frame. Hollywood releases fell from a market share of 44.2% in 2023 to 31.9% this year.

June attendance got some assistance from Fête du Cinema, the five-day-long promotion in which movie theatres sell tickets for EUR €5. Admissions on the first day were a record 1.4 million, the best in over 20 years.

South Korea
When the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) reports box office data for the country what’s interesting is they also provide information on whether a title broke even based on its gross. Like KOFIC also details admissions for each film. During the first half of 2024 62.9 million movies tickets were sold amounting to USD $442 million (KRW 610 billion). That just squeaks past last year’s USD $437.2 million (KRW 607 billion) from 51.3 million ticket sales.

The top ten movies of 2024 in Korea, so far, are an evenly split between local productions and Hollywood releases. The suspense horror movie “Exhuma” tops the list after scaring up USD $83.1 million (KRW 115 billion), followed by “The Roundup: Punishment” with USD $79.4 million (KRW 110 billion). The next four movies are all from the U.S.; “Inside Out 2,” “Wonka,” “Dune: Part Two” and “Kung Fu Panda 4.”

Though South Korea has defied the odds and avoided a theatrical downturn in 2024, the country is still over 40% behind where it was pre-pandemic when during the first six months of 2019 the region earned USD $672.3 million (KRW 931 billion) from 109 million admissions.

India
After dipping 15% during the first half of 2023, the Indian box office rebounded 3% during the first two quarters of 2024. According to Ormax Media box office is up to USD $605 million (INR 5,053 crore) through the end of June and the firm forecasts the country will finish the year out flat with 940 million tickets sold for USD $1.44 billion (INR 12,000 crore).

“Kalki 2898 AD” was the top grossing film during that time accounting for 15% of the market, earning USD $90 million (INR 775 crore), three times more than the title in second place, “Fighter,” which took in USD $29 million (INR 243). Keep in mind, “Kalki 2898 AD” was released on 27 June and only had three days to affect the total for the first half of 2024.

One of the difficulties in tracking box office figures for India is how regionalized the country is due to language differences. A movie that may be a smash hit in Hindi may not be seen at all in Telugu or Tamil speaking areas unless it is dubbed. Thus, reading box office charts can get tricky since a report may only represent a portion of the country. For instance, in the first six months of 2024, Hindi films represented roughly USD $120 million (INR 1,000 crore), or 35%, of the total box office. Meanwhile, Malayalam language titles have already grossed this year more than they did in all of 2023, taking a 15% market share.

Hollywood films accounted for USD $30.8 million (INR 257 crore) during the first half of 2024, only 7% of the market.