What started out as a slow box office season has seen a resurgence in the wake of blockbuster films like Barbie and Oppenheimer, which each earned more than $80 million each this past weekend. Despite this surge in ticket sales, however, the movie industry is still feeling the effects of COVID-19, a recent writers strike and slumping sales due to inflation. 

In 2023, movie ticket sales reached just over 825 million sold, according to figures from Statista. This is up slightly from 2022, when just over 812 million movie tickets were sold, and significantly up over 2021 sales of 492 million tickets. 

Despite these significant increases, ticket sales still fall behind pre-COVID-19, which reached 1.2 billion. 

The pandemic has had a significant impact on North American box office sales, which includes ticket sales in both the U.S. and Canada, which saw theaters shuttered and sales fall to $7.4 billion in 2022, down 40 percent from 2019. 

Teenagers remained top movie goers, averaging 2.5 films in 2021. This is five times more than moviegoers over the age of 60. It was also reported that Gen Z prefers films with a variety of themes and titles, indicating that this generation is looking for diversity at the box office.