The APAC gain is entirely due to China, which has made its own further encroachment within the APAC region, with a reduced market share of worldwide box office in the region’s other key markets: Japan, South Korea, and Australia. China is expected to represent nearly 34 percent of the global box office in 2021, compared to just over 28 percent in 2020. Japan, meanwhile, sees its market share halve from 12.2 percent to just 6 percent. Korea drops from 4.1 percent to 2.4 percent, and Australia from 2.7 percent to 2.1 percent.
The market share of global box office represented by the North American domestic (down from 21.8 percent to 21.6 percent) and Latin American (down from 4.9 percent to 4.6 percent) regions is expected to remain relatively unchanged between 2020 and 2021. In contrast, APAC is expected to expand its market share from just over 50 percent in 2020 to 52.2 percent in 2021. EMEA drops from 23.1 percent to 21.6 percent.
In EMEA, UK/Ireland is expected to represent 3.7 percent of global market share, down from 4.2 percent in 2020. However, the market will regain its position as the fourth biggest global box office market, behind China, Domestic and Japan, having been beaten by France in 2020. France is anticipated to fall back to 2.8 percent from 4.4 percent in 2020.
The $1.4 billion gain to the global prediction since the previous estimate, which was based on eight months of actuals and estimates for the final four months of the year, is primarily due to the blockbuster boost brought about by October. The combined successes of China’s Golden Week holiday, led by The Battle of Lake Changjin; the James Bond title No Time to Die; and Marvel anti-hero sequel Venom: Let There be Carnage ramped up cinema-going around the world.
Overall, Gower’s global estimate for October has risen nearly 30 percent from an original estimate of $2.5 billion to $3.2 billion. This would put October business just four percent behind the average of the three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019) for the month. No previous month in 2021 has performed better than 40 percent behind the three-year average. A significant portion of that gain came from China, which is predicted to gross 41 percent ahead of the three-year average for October having tracked well below the three-year average for the previous four months.
September was slightly ahead of estimates. For Gower’s previous estimate it had anticipated a $1.3 billion worldwide box office for September, 49 percent behind the pre-pandemic 3-year average. In actuality September finished just 41 percent behind the average with $1.5 billion worldwide (February, boosted by a record Chinese New Year, was also 41 percent behind). While the Domestic market did not perform quite as strongly as Gower had anticipated ($380m versus a projected $430m), the Chinese and International markets performed ahead of expectations.
China finishing approximately $80 million ahead of estimates and the international market (excluding China) approximately $165 million ahead. After several months virtually without import titles the August 27 release of Free Guy in China delivered in the market, with the film taking over $62 million of its $94 million Chinese box office within September and only narrowly missing out on leading the month behind local mid-month release Cloudy Mountain ($63.7m). There was also a last-minute bonus in the form of the September 30 releases of key Golden Week titles The Battle of Lake Changjin and My Country, My Parents, which together delivered $45.7 million before the October 1 official start of Golden Week.
The international gain came primarily from the performances of Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which has narrowly outperformed 2021’s earlier MCU title Black Widow internationally, and a strong start, especially across Europe, for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. In both France and Italy, Dune is the number one film of the pandemic-era with 2.7 million admissions recorded to date in France and a box office of €6.95 million ($8.1m) in Italy. It is the second biggest import release during the pandemic in Russia, having since been overtaken by Venom: Let There be Carnage, and the third in Germany. The film has continued to rollout internationally in October, and is now director Denis Villeneuve’s biggest international hit, having overtaken Blade Runner 2049.
This is the final estimate Gower Street plans to publish for 2021 before actuals are announced in early January.