UK box office forecast to top £1bn in 2025 after year-on-year fall
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Research firm Omdia says dip to £931m due to Hollywood strikes but wave of blockbusters likely to renew recovery. The UK box office is forecast to surpass £1bn next year for the first time in six years, but cinema bosses still say moviegoing will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2026.
The pace of the hoped-for recovery at the box office was disrupted by the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes last summer, which delayed the release of a number of blockbusters. As a result, the research company Omdia forecasts that the UK box office will decline marginally to £931m in 2024.
This is down from £978m in 2023 and marks the first annual contraction since 2020, when the Covid pandemic forced cinemas to close. The strikes have dealt a financial blow to cinema operators aiming to reignite the cinemagoing habits of film fans after the pandemic, during which the UK’s largest operator, Cineworld, was forced to enter bankruptcy protection in the US and later downsized its British operation in efforts to pay down its huge debt pile.
“We knew it was not going to be the best year, and worse than last year, because of the impact of the strikes,” said David Hancock, Omdia’s chief media and entertainment analyst. “The problem is, if you don’t have a consistency in the supply of films, you lose momentum and people forget about going. The pandemic completely broke the habit of regular cinemagoing. It takes time to build it back up again. It is difficult because it keeps getting broken.”.
