Gower Street Analytics estimates the global box office reached USD $4.54 billion in July of 2023, making it the highest-grossing month since before the pandemic began. This represents a significant growth of +17% compared to the average July earnings of the pre-pandemic years from 2017 to 2019. For the first time since the pandemic began in 2020, all three key markets that make up the global box office (Domestic, China, and International excluding China) tracked ahead of their pre-pandemic averages.

July’s success was driven, in part, by Warner Bros. “Barbie” and Universal Pictures “Oppenheimer” which contributed an estimated USD $1.23 billion (27%) of the global box office for the month. The cumulative annual global box office through 31 July is approximately USD $20.95 billion, less than 2% behind the full 12-month result of 2021 and tracking -11% behind the 2017-2019 average.

These global figures are +31% ahead of the results in 2022 at the end of July with some international markets even out-performing their pre-pandemic July averages: UK/Ireland (+18%), France (+14%), Germany (+35%), Spain (+14%), Italy (+98%), Australia (+13%), Brazil (+5%). China’s box office total for 2023 (estimated at $4.8 billion) has already surpassed its full-year 2022 total.