10 Biggest Box Office Surprises In 2024

From the unexpected success of Terrifier 3 to the unprecedented failure of Joker: Folie à Deux, there were a bunch of shocks and surprises at the box office in 2024. After Barbenheimer gave the box office a massive boost in 2023, 2024 saw another decline in theatrical revenue. But there were a few blockbuster hits that kept movie theaters alive in 2024, like Wicked, Inside Out 2, and Deadpool & Wolverine. There were some 2024 box office disappointments that found success on streaming long after they left theaters.

Some of the box office results of 2024 were completely predictable. Borderlands and Kraven the Hunter were never going to be hits; everything about their marketing and behind-the-scenes drama spelled a disaster from the get-go. And no one was surprised when ol’ reliables like Kung Fu Panda and Sonic the Hedgehog scored another hit at the box office. But there were still plenty of surprises at the 2024 box office.

10

Joker: Folie À Deux Was An Unmitigated Box Office Disaster

Todd Phillips’ first Joker movie — a mid-budget, adult-oriented psychological thriller with dark themes — made an unprecedented $1 billion at the worldwide box office in 2019. Naturally, Warner Bros. twisted Phillips’ arm to get a sequel out of him. The studio gave Joker: Folie à Deux a whopping $190 million blockbuster budget, gave Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix a hefty payday, and brought in Lady Gaga to play Harley Quinn in what would be a lavish Golden Age-style musical extravaganza.

At the beginning of 2024, Joker: Folie à Deux was expected to easily gross another $1 billion like its predecessor. But what those predictions didn’t count on was that the movie would be wildly polarizing. Critics switched between praising and panning it, and fans of the original film felt personally insulted by it. It grossed a paltry $206,102,722 (via The Numbers), a massive step down from the first one. Nobody saw that coming.

9

It Ends With Us Grossed $350 Million

Over the past few years, the mid-budget grown-up movie has quietly died a death. Those kinds of movies are going straight to streaming as the theaters are increasingly infested with big-budget blockbusters. But the runaway box office success of the 2024 Colleen Hoover-based romantic drama It Ends with Us has proven that maybe the mid-budget grown-up movie isn’t dead after all.

It’s a serious, adult-oriented drama about toxic relationships and domestic abuse, and it managed to become a box office hit alongside a Marvel movie and an Alien movie. It Ends with Us grossed an impressive $350,993,761 (via Box Office Mojo), around the same amount as Alien: Romulus, without a recognizable franchise or action-packed spectacle to rely on. This should be a promising sign for studios interested in adapting other popular novels for the screen.

8

Pixar’s Inside Out 2 Became The Highest-Grossing Animated Movie Ever Made

Over the past couple of years, Pixar’s track record at the box office has taken a nosedive. Lightyear was a bona fide bomb, despite coming from the studio’s most reliable franchise, and Elemental still underperformed despite making an impressive box office comeback. Pixar’s 2024 release, Inside Out 2, could’ve followed in this pattern and been another commercial disappointment for the studio. But not only was Inside Out 2 a box office success; it became the highest-grossing animated movie of all time.

Inside Out 2’s box office numbers are impressive even by Pixar’s usual standards. With an enormous global haul of $1,687,272,063, Inside Out 2 became the highest-grossing film of 2024 and the highest-grossing film in Pixar’s history. Thanks to its intergenerational appeal, Inside Out 2 almost doubled the lifetime gross of the first movie.

7

8 Of The Top 10 Highest-Grossing Movies Of 2024 Were Sequels

Throughout the 21st century, sequels have made up a healthy majority of the top 10 highest-grossing movies of each year, but they don’t always have the kind of dominance they had in 2024. In 2023, four of the 10 highest-grossing movies were sequels. But in 2024, eight of the top 10 highest-grossing movies of the year were sequels.

These top-grossing sequels include Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, Despicable Me 4, Moana 2, Dune: Part Two, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Kung Fu Panda 4, and Venom: The Last Dance. The only two entries in the top 10 that weren’t sequels were YOLO, a comedic Chinese remake of the 2014 Japanese film 100 Yen Love, and Wicked, a movie based on a Broadway musical based on a novel based on a movie based on a series of books. Wicked is the first part of a two-parter, the second volume of which is set to arrive later this year.

6

Dune: Part Two Grossed More Than $700 Million

When it was released in theaters and on streaming on the same day in 2021, Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune movie barely grossed enough money to get Warner Bros. to commit to completing his adaptation with a second film. It was always going to be tough to turn Frank Herbert’s sci-fi opus into a blockbuster franchise. It deals with heavy political and theological themes, and its lore is shamelessly weird — it was an uphill battle to turn Dune into a mainstream hit.

Dune: Part Two is a near-three-hour war movie about intergalactic politics and the dangers of religious zealotry, but it managed to become an undeniable blockbuster success. It far outgrossed its predecessor with a worldwide haul of $714,444,358 (via Box Office Mojo). The fact that its breathtaking visuals demanded to be seen with an expensive IMAX ticket surely helped to boost those numbers.

5

Deadpool & Wolverine Became The Highest-Grossing R-Rated Movie Of All Time

Marvel Studios’ output used to be a sure-fire success at the box office, but it’s been a lot more hit-and-miss lately. In 2023, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania underperformed and The Marvels was a genuine flop. Marvel’s only theatrical release of 2024, Deadpool & Wolverine, could’ve gone either way. The R rating made it a big commercial risk, and it was hard to gauge whether the team-up of Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine excited casual moviegoers or just diehard superhero fans.

But it didn’t just turn a profit; it beat out Joker and Oppenheimer to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever made by a margin of hundreds of millions of dollars. Deadpool & Wolverine grossed an impressive $1,338,071,348 over the course of an extensive theatrical run (via The Numbers). Teaming up these two mutants was one of the best decisions Marvel ever made.

4

Terrifier 3 Became The Highest-Grossing Unrated Movie Ever Made

Damien Leone’s Terrifier series has become notorious for pushing its audience to their limits. What started out as a microbudget horror production has evolved into an unlikely blockbuster franchise, because its sickeningly excessive gore has earned it a fervent cult following. With reports of viewers fainting and vomiting in theaters, 2024’s Christmas-themed threequel, Terrifier 3, brought the franchise’s bloodshed to shocking new heights — and that surprisingly resulted in it reaching new heights at the box office, too.

Terrifier 3 grossed $89,754,227 worldwide (via Box Office Mojo) against a relatively slim budget of $2 million. It broke a bunch of niche box office records: it became the highest-grossing Terrifier film, the highest-grossing Cineverse film, the highest-grossing Leone film, and the highest-grossing unrated film. Who could’ve guessed that Art the Clown would outgross the Joker at the box office?

3

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Underperformed Despite Universal Acclaim From Critics

In the summer of 2024, action movie maestro George Miller dropped another entry in his beloved Mad Max series, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. But despite universal acclaim from critics — with a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score unanimously promising a satisfying cinematic experience — Furiosa was a box office bomb. It was the follow-up to modern classic Mad Max: Fury Road, but it barely scraped back its $168 million budget with a worldwide gross of $172,714,623.

There are a few reasons why Furiosa underperformed at the box office. It arrived nine years after Fury Road, so it didn’t exactly strike while the iron was hot. Plus, it wasn’t a four-quadrant movie, it didn’t have any proven box office draws in its cast, and it was a prequel. And despite the critical praise, the Mad Max franchise has always had niche appeal.

2

Moana 2 Swooped In At The Last Minute To Become A Smash Hit

When 2024 began, a sequel to Moana wasn’t even scheduled to hit theaters. It wasn’t until February that Disney announced it was retooling a Moana streaming series as a theatrical sequel to the movie. When Moana 2 was released in November, the reviews reflected the last-minute cash-grab switch from streaming to theatrical. There’s plenty of evidence that the movie was cobbled together from disparate pieces of a larger story developed for a different medium.

But none of that mattered all that much. The Moana fan base is so large and dedicated that, despite its mediocre quality, Moana 2 became a massive success. Since arriving in theaters, Moana 2 has grossed $960,937,374 and counting (via Box Office Mojo). It might not have been the best creative decision, but it proved to be a wise business decision.

1

Longlegs Became The Highest-Grossing Independent Film Of 2024

If not for a viral marketing campaign, Osgood Perkins’ unsettling serial killer thriller Longlegs might have disappeared into obscurity. But Neon did an incredible job of advertising this movie. The studio released a series of cryptic trailers that revealed nothing about the plot of the film, but did promise one of the most disturbing cinematic experiences of the year. They deliberately obscured Nicolas Cage’s titular slasher to build an air of mystique around the character.

This ingenious marketing campaign paid off in spades. On a budget of less than $10 million, Longlegs managed to gross $126,942,386 (via Box Office Mojo). It wasn’t enough to enter the top 10, but it was certainly a huge profit margin — and it was enough to become the highest-grossing independent film of the year and Neon’s biggest ever domestic hit.

Source: The Numbers, Box Office Mojo