THB #210: How To Make A Hit/Barbarian

We’ve had 12 $100 million domestic hits this year and 15 worldwide hits over $200 million.

We’ve had 7 domestic hits between $50 million gross and $100 million and 7 worldwide between $100m & $200m.

Below that level, it gets spottier, though there are movies that should be considered hits even with grosses in the $20 million domestic range, like the 2 Crunchyroll animes and movies that will make money in post-theatrical, like The Northman and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

The highest grossing film of 2021 so far that can be considered a box office disappointment is Lightyear, with $225 million worldwide. It’s been on Disney+ for 20 days as of this writing (Aug 23) and I would bet that even with a soft theatrical run, it is playing better for D+ than it would have without it. But that’s for Disney to know and for me to never, ever find out.

The Top 10 domestic grossers and the Top 11 worldwide grossers are all IP movies. Even the barely-see-in-America $626 million grosser Water …