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Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 2024 |
 Timeline of Greatest Film History Milestones and Turning Points (by decade and year) Introduction | Pre-1900s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
| Event and Significance | |
| A HarrisX poll reported that 34 percent of U.S. adults preferred to watch movies in theaters. Conversely, 2 out of 3 adults would rather wait for movies to be released on streaming services, and instead watch them at home. The poll showed that there was also very strong demand among content streamers - nearly half of consumers reported that they streamed movies weekly. The reasons provided for a preference in attending films in a theatre included the big-screen experience (59%), the quality of surround-sound systems (47%), fewer distractions than at home (39%), theatre's reclining seats (37%), theatre refreshments (32%), movie exclusivity in a theatre (30%), 3-D or IMAX technologies (30%), being with a live audience (26%), movie premieres or screenings (25%), and nostalgia (24%). The reasons for avoiding films in a movie theatre included the following: the cost of movie tickets (53%), the cost of theatre concessions-refreshments (42%), the comforts of home viewing (40%), "uninterested" (24%), sanitation and health reasons (23%), no restroom breaks (22%), audience distractions (19%), inconveniences of travel, traffic and parking (15%), selection of films (13%), inconvenient theatre locations (13%), limited availability or inconvenient showtime schedules (11%), and seat selection (8%). | |
| According to predictions by Deadline,
the domestic box-office was expected to drop in 2024 by $1-2 Billion
to a total of $8 Billion (compared to a total of about $9 Billion in
2023). Two major reasons accounted for the drop: (1) fewer films due
to the "broken rhythm" and "erratic pipeline of product," partially due
to the prolonged WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023 that left only
107 wide titles and bumped many 2024 movies to 2025, and (2)
waning moviegoer sentiment, according to the National Research Group's
(NRG) recent study reporting that 69% of moviegoers wanted more original
movies, and were suffering from "superhero fatigue." In fact, some moviegoers
felt that some strides were actually being made in reducing the number
of franchise films, although many releases set to be released in 2024
were still sequels or reboots/reimaginings. The study reported that Americans
weren't attending movies as frequently as they did pre-pandemic, off by close
to a third from pre-pandemic levels, mostly due to changed habits, inflationary
pressures, and an explosion in streaming. So in spite of ticket price
increases, the total box-office revenue intake was decreasing. It concluded
that "the challenge the industry faces is getting quality, theatrical
product out there on a continuous basis to consistently engage the habit of moviegoing." Another major issue was that movie-going ranked the lowest on providing "a lot of value" for consumers' money spent, when compared to other activities such as amusement parks, sporting events, and restaurants. Most customers said that they supported the move to reduce movie ticket prices and provide cheaper concession prices. Movie-going has mostly been challenged by the preference to stream movies at home vs. attending a movie theatre, bolstered by the comforts of in-home viewing, the increase in internet speeds, and the shortened window between theatrical and streaming releases. Many, however, still felt that there was nothing more important than the value of a theatrical release - that also boded well for a film's streaming success at a later date. |
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| There were a few major box-office bombs in 2024: (1) director Francis Ford Coppola's passion project Megapolis (2024) - brought in revenues of only $7.6 million (domestic) and $13.9 million (worldwide), while its budget was $120 million; (2) director Todd Phillips' musical thriller sequel Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn and Joaquin Phoenix as the title character - on a budget of $190 million, it made only $58.3 million (domestic), and $206.4 million (worldwide); (3) director Eli Roth's Borderlands (2024) with the tagline "Chaos Loves Company" - brought in revenues of only $15.5 million (domestic) and $32.9 million (worldwide), on a whopping budget of $115 million; (4) the Kingsman film franchise spinoff Argylle (2024) - on a budget of $200 million, it only succeeded in raising $45.2 million (domestic) and $96.2 million (worldwide); (5) The Fall Guy (2024) - based on the 1981-1986 TV series, on a budget of $125 million, it produced revenues of $92.9 million (domestic) and $181 million (worldwide); (6) Madame Web (2024) - an entry in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, with a budget of $80 million, it only made $43.8 million (domestic) and $105 million (worldwide); (7) director George Miller's Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) - was budgeted at $168 million, while its revenues were $67.4 million (domestic) and $173.8 million (worldwide); and (8) New LIne Cinema's Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 (2024), produced and directed by Kevin Costner, with a budget of $100 million, it came in with revenues of only $29 million (domestic) and $38.2 million (worldwide). | |
| American film director Roger Corman died
at the age of 98. He was well-known as the extremely-prolific "King
of the B's." He had served as the producer and director of almost
500 independent, low-budget B films (horror, action,
westerns, teen movies and sci-fi mostly) and drive-in movies. In
the 1970s, he made films for inner-city grindhouse theatres. In
the 1980s, he then pioneered direct-to-video films, and into the 1990s,
he produced Showtime late-night cable melodramas. Many young actors
got their initial 'break' in Corman films, including Jack Nicholson,
Ellen Burstyn, Robert De Niro and William Shatner. He also produced some
of the earliest films for budding directors, such as Francis Ford Coppola,
Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, Curtis
Hanson, Penelope Spheeris, and Ron Howard. His legendary filmography stretched back to the mid-1950s, and included such films (only a sampling) as: Swamp Women (1955), The Day the World Ended (1956), It Conquered the World (1956), Not of This Earth (1957), The Undead (1957), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), Sorority Girl (1957), Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), A Bucket of Blood (1959), House of Usher (1960), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Wasp Woman (1960), The Intruder (1961), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Premature Burial (1962), X - The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963), The Raven (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), The Terror (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), The Tomb of Ligeia (1965), The Wild Angels (1966), The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), The Trip (1967), Bloody Mama (1970), Death Race 2000 (1975), Rock n’ Roll High School (1979), Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), Galaxy of Terror (1981), and Frankenstein Unbound (1990). His most notable films included a series from 1960-1964 of eight Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring horror icon Vincent Price. He also made the original version of the black comedy Little Shop of Horrors (1960), and produced the Ramones' comedy Rock n' Roll High School (1979) and the cult sci-fi classic Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). |
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| Another 'woke' or 'politically-correct' precedent seemed to be set as a result of AMC Networks' streaming service (AMC+) and its decision to air a content warning before the showing of Martin Scorsese's violent, and unflinching mobster classic GoodFellas (1990) - see lengthy review here. Their message was as follows: "This film includes language and/or cultural stereotypes that are inconsistent with today’s standards of inclusion and tolerance and may offend some viewers." The most significant issue with such a warning is that it judgmentally imposed our current cultural norms on a work of the historical past - 34 years ago. Any viewer about to watch the mob flick GoodFellas doesn't need external guidance via a disclaimer, and would have to know that its subject matter was about three decades of organized crime and life in the Italian-American Mafia (not portrayed as stereotypes, but realistically represented by director Scorsese). Therefore, out of historical necessity, Scorsese's masterpiece had to include violence and psychopathic characters. In this case, audiences shouldn't need a "trigger warning," extreme coddling and sensitivity about content that might be 'offensive.' GoodFellas remains one of the greatest gangster films ever made - and it admittedly contains lots of obscenities, shocking violence, drug use and scenarios about Italian mobsters. The violent, carefully-built film, thoroughly entertaining to watch, was given six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Joe Pesci), Best Supporting Actress (Lorraine Bracco), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker) - and only Pesci won the Oscar. | |
| Actress Shelley Duvall passed away at the age of 75 on July 11, 2024. She became known for her five appearances in Robert Altman films in the 1970s: Brewster McCloud (1970), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974), Nashville (1975), and 3 Women (1977). She also appeared in a cameo role in Woody's Allen romantic comedy Annie Hall (1977). Then, she had her two most memorable films in 1980 -- as Olive Oyl in Altman's Popeye (1980), and as Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's horror film The Shining (1980). Other 1980s films included Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits (1981), Tim Burton's Frankenweenie (1984), and Roxanne (1987). | |
| Actor James Earl Jones passed away at the age of 93 on September 9, 2024. The popular stage and screen actor was well-known for his many roles, including the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy (Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), plus in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) and in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016). He was also the voice of King Mufasa in The Lion King (1994). Other memorable roles included Lt. Lothar Zogg in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), and Terence Mann in Field of Dreams (1989). | |
| Maggie Smith died at the age of 89 on September 27, 2024. She appeared in dozens of distinguished films and stage roles, and first made an impact as Jean Brodie in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) for which she received her first Academy Award (Best Actress). Her second Oscar win was Best Supporting Actress for California Suite (1978). She had a total of six Academy Award nominations. Her most visible on-going role was as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter franchise of films (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (2011)). Another very memorable role was as Violet Crawley in the British period drama Downton Abbey (2010–2015) on television. | |
| Canadian actor Donald Sutherland passed away at the age of 88 on June 20, 2024, after a long career in over 50 years of films, including his breakthrough role as Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, M.D. in M*A*S*H (1970). Other appearances were in Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Ordinary People (1980), JFK (1991), and as President Snow in The Hunger Games franchise (2012-2015). | |
| Gena Rowlands passed away at the age of 94 on August 14, 2024. She received two Best Actress nominations for her roles in two ground-breaking independent films: A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980), directed by her actor-husband John Cassavetes. She also appeared later in her career in her son Nick Cassavetes' tearjerking romance film The Notebook (2004). | |
| The involuntary manslaughter case against actor and co-producer Alec Baldwin for a fatal shooting on October 21, 2021 on the New Mexico set of the western film Rust was dismissed for the second and final time, on July 12, 2024. Hollywood actor Baldwin was charged with firing a live round from a prop gun he held while he was rehearsing a scene. 42 year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died as a result of the incident, and the director Joel Souza was slightly injured. Baldwin continued to claim during the subsequent hearings-trials that he denied pulling the trigger of the prop gun which went off. He testified that the gun discharged when he cocked the replica revolver's hammer. Earlier, the film's armourer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was responsible for the weapons on the set, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in April of 2024, and given the maximum sentence of 18 months in prison. The charges were dropped for Baldwin when it was alleged that police and prosecutors had hidden evidence - a batch of bullets - that could have been connected to the shooting. | |
| The biggest movie of the year was Pixar's Inside Out 2 (2024). It became the highest-grossing film of 2024 (both domestic and worldwide), with domestic revenue of $653 million and $1.698 billion worldwide; it became the fastest animated film to cross the $1 billion mark, and was the highest-grossing film in Pixar history; it became the highest-grossing animated film of all-time (domestic and worldwide) at $1.698 billion, ahead of The Incredibles 2 (2018) (at $1.243 billion, and $608.6 million) and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) (at $1.36 billion, and $575 million). | |
| The announcement that Redbox was closing its 26,000 bright-red rental kiosks after 22 years struck a blow to the DVD and home entertainment markets, now dominated by digital-only streaming. Physical media was becoming completely obsolete, aided also by the end of DVD rentals by Netflix in late September 2023, and Best Buy's decision in early 2024 to discontinue physical DVD and Blu-ray disc sales in-store and online. Redbox had been struggling for years, and finally called it quits after its parent company - Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment - declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. Redbox had already ceased video game rentals in 2019. They had experimented with video on-demand streaming by launching Redbox On Demand in 2017 and Redbox Free Live TV in 2020, the latter a free live TV streaming service with ads. | |
| The very popular cross-over superhero-film Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) became the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. It was also the 2nd highest-grossing film (domestic) of the year 2024. Pixar/Disney's Inside Out 2 (2024) became the highest-grossing animated film of all-time (domestic and worldwide). | |
| The top 10 films of the year (in terms of domestic revenue), are all sequels, reboots or prequels from pre-existing or established film franchises. # 1: Inside Out 2 (2024): $653 million, # 2: Deadpool & Wolverine (2024): $636.7 million, # 3: Despicable Me 4 (2024): $361 million, # 4: Wicked (2024): $342.4+ million, # 5: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024): $294.1+ million, # 6: Dune: Part Two (2024): $282.1 million, # 7: Twisters (2024): $267.8 million, # 8: Moana 2 (2024): $248 million, # 9: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024): $196.4 million, # 10: Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024): $193.6 million -- and the list goes on like this without a single original title. It is clear that audiences prefer tried-and-true films that are familiar and recognizable. At least half of the titles were kid-friendly - a promising trend. | |
| Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) celebrated their 100th anniversaries, while the DreamWorks companies celebrated their 30th anniversaries. | |
| In the previous year, 2023's domestic box office finished above $9 billion for the first time since 2019. In the pre-pandemic years, annual sales topped $10 billion annually in North America. Much of the previous year's success was due to three films: Barbie (2023), Oppenheimer (2023), and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), and some surprise hits such as Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023) and Sound of Freedom (2023). As 2024 dawned, the after effects of the 2023 strike were really being felt, especially during the first half of the year due to a gap in releases or outright delays. It was feared that the domestic box-office would take a $2 billion dollar hit for the year. Streaming was not as financially profitable as predicted (except possibly for Netflix), and many cable viewers were cord-cutting and becoming more selective in their movie-viewing or VOD (video on demand) choices. Ticket prices in movies theatres had increased, but revenues were down, meaning that even fewer people were going to the movies. There were very few blockbusters at first in 2024, but then the market was buoyed by a string of films that each made more than $200 million (domestically): Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), Despicable Me 4 (2024), Dune: Part Two (2024), Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024), Inside Out 2 (2024) (the year's top film), Wicked (2024), Moana 2 (2024), and Twisters (2024). Of all these films, only Dune: Part Two (2024) was released before the summer season. | |
| Due to the after-effects of the long-running strike in 2023, many popular older titles were re-released to fill in the gaps in theatrical schedules in 2024: Les Misérables (2012), Alien (1979), The Lion King (1994), Whiplash (2014), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Shrek 2 (2004), Twister (1996), Coraline (2009), Interstellar (2014) and Tenet (2020). | |
| The website The Numbers.com estimated that the total domestic box-office revenue for 2024 was just over $8 billion. About 745,000 tickets were sold, at the average ticket price of $10.78. | |
| Three horror films dominated during the summer of 2024: (1) A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) - the third installment in the A Quiet Place film franchise (2018-2024); (2) MaXXXine (2024) - the third installment in the X film franchise following X (2022) and its prequel Pearl (2022); and (3) Longlegs (2024). Another surprise horror film of the year was the low-budget Terrifier 3 (2024), the third film in the series that took in a whopping $54 million. | |
| In a stunning reversal of its previous
support and policies, Disney announced its removal of its references
to transgender identity in its 8-episode Pixar streaming series titled Win
or Lose, to be aired beginning in February of 2025. Disney
CEO Bob Iger had already telegraphed that he wanted Disney to move away
from themes that could be perceived as political, and focus more on entertainment.
Parental feedback was growing over complaints that Disney was inappropriately
'indoctrinating' young children with trans- or gender identity propaganda. Some
argued that Florida's Parental Rights in Education Act (2022) was partially
responsible for Disney's turnabout. Others conjectured that Disney was
concerned about its bottom line in countries such as China, Egypt and
Iraq (and other Muslim or Arab countries) where LGBTQ+ content and characters
had to be edited or censored out, or their films were banned altogether.
The live action remake of Beauty and the Beast (2017) was protested
in some countries (i.e., Kuwait) due to the inclusion of a minor LGBTQ+
character (Disney's first 'gay character' LeFou (Josh Gad)). Marvel's
superhero film Eternals (2021) featured a black character named
Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) - a gay married man with a husband - that
offended Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar who banned the film. It was
little known that Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the 1957 musical
West Side Story (2021), a Disney film, was banned in a number
of Arab countries due to its depiction of the trans character Anybodys
(played by non-binary actor Iris Menas). A lesbian kissing scene and
the mention of two lesbian mothers in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse
of Madness (2022) also caused further problems in Saudi Arabia. A spokesman reiterated Iger's new approach: "When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline." This marked a concerted change from Disney's past efforts to place trans- and gender non-conforming characters into its stories or products. For example, Disney Animation's box-office bomb Strange World (2022) featured Ethan Clade - the first gay lead character in a Disney animated film; Pixar's Lightyear (2022) featured a same-sex kiss for the character of Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), causing the film to be banned in countries like Egypt and Iraq in the Middle East; and Pixar's Elemental (2023) featured the first non-binary character (Lake Ripple) in a Pixar film. Another animated Disney film that explored both gender identity and sexual orientation included Mulan (1998). There was also speculation that Elsa would have a female love interest in Frozen III (2027). A widely-disseminated report falsely claimed that the lead female title character of Moana had become the first transgender Disney princess after transitioning to a male named Kai in Moana 2 (2024). |
