Broadway Grosses Analysis: Holiday Box Office Soars to $50+ Million, The Lion King Breaks $4 Million, More | Playbill

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Grosses Broadway Grosses Analysis: Holiday Box Office Soars to $50+ Million, The Lion King Breaks $4 Million, More

Audiences flocked to Broadway shows the week between Christmas and New Year's, delivering the best week on Broadway since before the pandemic.

Broadway enjoyed its highest-grossing week since before the pandemic last week, bringing in $51.9 million and setting numerous house records as audiences flocked to see shows—many of which played an expanded nine-performance week—between Christmas and New Year's. That cumulative total puts it within striking distance of the $55.8 million total brought in the week ending December 29, 2019.

The week's biggest winner was Disney's The Lion King, which brought in a staggering $4.31 million over nine performances, the first show to break that $4 million mark since the shutdown and the highest weekly gross in Broadway history. Always a top grosser, the holiday week saw few empty seats (15,147 people saw one of the nine performances) and a pricey average ticket price of $284.89, allowing the show to enjoy the highest grossing run of its 25-year run.

Fellow regular top grosser The Music Man nearly crossed the $4 million mark as well, bringing in $3.97 million—the top grossing week of the Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster–led revival's run—and coming in at the number-two slot, followed by WickedAladdin, and The Phantom of the OperaWicked impressed with 100% capacity over its nine performances, with 17,334 theatregoers catching the Stephen Schwartz musical over the week. The top five grossers all played nine performances.

Over Broadway as a whole, there were few productions that didn't have an outstanding week. Among the shows breaking all-time house records with huge box-office receipts were AladdinHarry Potter and the Cursed ChildChicagoSIX: The Musical& JulietFunny Girl, and Beetlejuice, which, of course, means all those productions also brought in the top grossing week of their entire run.

Last week's grosses are bolstering to an industry that has struggled to regain footing following the pandemic, bringing in the closest we've come to pre-pandemic measures of success since the 2021 return. It should be noted that house records and rising grosses are markers that Broadway shows make regularly; inflation and rising ticket prices (that themselves generally outpace inflation) ensure that beyond abject failure, these metrics will always be a familiar face in Broadway gross reports. That being said, last week was undeniably strong for Broadway. An astonishing 312,878 people saw a Broadway show, and 92.3% of seats were filled across the 33 productions then running (the Jefferson Mays-led A Christmas Carol closed January 1)—12 productions played to 100% or more capacity. These are metrics that are easy to celebrate irrespective of rising ticket prices.

Take a look at the full report here.

The $1 Million Club (Shows that earned $1 million or more at the box office):

  • The Lion King ($4.3 million)
  • The Music Man ($4 million)
  • Wicked ($3.2 million)
  • Aladdin ($2.8 million)
  • The Phantom of the Opera ($2.8 million)
  • Hamilton ($2.7 million)
  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ($2.7 million)
  • Beetlejuice ($2.5 million)
  • Funny Girl ($2.4 million)
  • MJ The Musical ($2.2 million)
  • Moulin Rouge! The Musical
  • Into the Woods
  • The Book of Mormon
  • SIX: The Musical
  • & Juliet
  • A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical
  • Chicago
  • Hadestown
  • Some Like It Hot
  • The Piano Lesson
  • Almost Famous

(21 of 33 currently running productions)


The 90s Club
(Shows that played to 90% or higher of their seats filled over the entire week):

  • The Book of Mormon (101.8%)
  • The Phantom of the Opera (101.7%)
  • Hamilton (101.7%)
  • Chicago (101.3%)
  • The Music Man (101.3%)
  • Hadestown (101.2%)
  • Beetlejuice (100.8%)
  • MJ The Musical (100.4%)
  • SIX: The Musical (100.2%)
  • & Juliet (100.2%)
  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (100%)
  • Wicked (100%)
  • Aladdin
  • Moulin Rouge! The Musical
  • The Lion King
  • Almost Famous
  • 1776
  • A Strange Loop
  • Into the Woods
  • The Piano Lesson
  • Kimberly Akimbo
  • Funny Girl

(22 of 33 currently running productions)

 
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