Disney Becomes First Studio in History to Bring in $10 Billion at Worldwide Box Office
Written by SOURCE on December 9, 2019
By midnight tonight/tomorrow Disney should hold the distinction of being the first ever studio to make more than $10 billion in a year at the worldwide box office, according to Variety.
Up through Sunday the studio had made $3.28 billion off of moviegoers in North America, in addition to more than $6.7 billion from audiences overseas. Going deeper into those decimal points, the combined pull at the worldwide box offices totals $9.997 billion, which means they’re estimated to bust the $10 billion mark by the end of Monday.
In addition to being the first studio to generate 11 figures in one trip around the sun, Disney beat the previous record for most money made in a year, which was $7.6 billion in 2016, and which was held, oh, also by them.
In fact, that $7.6 billion record was smashed back in July following the combined commercial success of Avengers: Endgame and The Lion King. Note that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is set to hit theaters on December 20, which means that the new record is going to rise quite a bit between now and New Years.
Back in August, after the Lion King reboot brought in its billionth buck, Disney set a record for having five films (Aladdin, Toy Story 4, Captain Marvel, and Endgame) make more than a billion dollars in the same year. As it stands, Frozen 2 has also made them $920 million. So that’s looking like a sixth film that’ll hit that mark. Also note the line above how The Rise of Skywalker hasn’t been released yet.
Variety adds that Disney’s total doesn’t include box office receipts for Fox titles like Dark Phoenix and Ford v Ferrari, even though Disney acquired Fox’s film arm earlier this year. Had numbers from Fox’s films been counted, then Disney’s current 2019 haul would be nearly $12 billion. Cue Martin Scorsese.
