Sequels take nine of 10 slots in US box office in 2024

In 2023, Hollywood's creative community was celebrating the apparent decline of corporate, paint-by-numbers sequels and remakes.

- Brooks Barnes

Blockbuster ticket sales for movies such as Oppenheimer, Sound of Freedom and Barbie had shown — or so it seemed — that audiences were finally hungry for fresh stories.

You could almost hear the relief emanating from franchise-fatigued writers, directors and producers. Everything Everywhere All at Once, the wildly inventive Oscar-winning art film that broke out in cinemas in 2022, had not been a fluke.

However, mass moviegoing swung squarely back to the predictable in 2024, with sequels filling nine of the top 10 slots at the North American box office. They were Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, Deadpool & Wolverine, Moana 2, Dune: Part Two, Beetlejuice, Kung Fu Panda 4, Twisters and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.