Disney has just set a truly stunning record at the box office that may never be broken. Not even by Disney. The studio, with the help of Frozen 2, has just passed the $10 billion mark at the global box office in 2019, becoming the first studio in history to do so. What’s more incredible is that Frozen 2 still has a long way to go before it finishes up and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is scheduled to hit theaters on December 20, which will only add to this growing, monster total.
Frozen 2 has topped the box office for three weeks in a row and has now earned $919.7 million globally. The impressive performance of the animated sequel helped push Disney over the $10 billion mark. Disney had already obliterated its own record earlier this year for box office brought in by a studio in a single year, which was $7.6 billion, a mark that was set in 2016. It’s not tough to imagine that the Mouse House could surpass $10.5 billion before year’s end. That is a truly staggering number, especially when looking at what other studios have brought in by comparison.
For example, only two non-Disney movies have passed the $1 billion mark at the box office this year, with Warner Bros.’ Joker ($1.05 billion) and Sony’s Spider-Man: Far From Home ($1.13 billion) accomplishing that feat. Disney, meanwhile, has had five with Avengers: Endgame ($2.79 billion), The Lion King ($1.65 billion), Captain Marvel ($1.12 billion), Toy Story 4 ($1.07 billion) and Aladdin ($1.05 billion). Plus, Frozen 2 will pass that milestone shortly. Even Disney’s relative disappointments like Maleficent: Mistress of Evil ($481.3 million) and Tim Burton’s Dumbo ($353.2 million) are numbers that rival studios would love to see. It’s also worth pointing out that Spider-Man: Far From Home, though released by Sony, was produced by the Disney-owned Marvel Studios and takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which benefited it greatly.
What is perhaps most impressive, or concerning from a certain point of view, about the $10 billion figure is that it doesn’t include movies that were produced by 20th Century Fox and released by Disney after the companies merged earlier this year in a massive $71.3 billion deal. When the Fox titles such as Dark Phoenix, Stuber and Ad Astra (which were considered bombs, for what it’s worth) are added in, the number climbs to $11.94 billion. That is truly bewildering.
The concern here is that Disney could have a near-monopoly on the box office in the years to come. But it’s not necessarily Disney’s fault that people are choosing to vote with their wallets for the kind of movies that they make. In any event, this is an impressive record that was the result of a perfect storm of releases that all hit and over-delivered. It seems unlikely the record will ever be broken, at least not for a very long time. Deadline.
