Disney’s record-setting year at the box office simply won’t quit until the calendar rolls over. As the year comes to a close, Disney has remained king of the 2019 worldwide box office, producing eight out of the year’s 10 highest-grossing films.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hit cinema screens the past weekend and had a strong opening at $175.5 million in the United States. While that’s not as large as The Force Awakens (2015) or The Last Jedi (2017), it’s still going to make the movie a huge hit for Disney, giving them another spot in the top ten highest-grossing US releases of 2019 – edging out Jordan Peele’s acclaimed Us, which grossed $175.05 million at the box office in the United States earlier this year. As such, Disney has produced eight of this year’s top ten, which is a truly unprecedented level of success.
With the success of numerous films including Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin and Toy Story 4 earlier this year, Disney has been growing at an astonishing rate and has earned a record-setting $10 billion at worldwide box office. The recent growth in success of Disney shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that the studio has always been a prominent player in the entertainment industry and has also begun to buy and consume its competition over the last couple of years.
The following 2019 movies also sit in the top ten, all of which were produced by Disney:
Avengers: Endgame
Worldwide Box Office: $2,797,800,564
The Lion King
Worldwide Box Office: $1,656,313,097
Toy Story 4
Worldwide Box Office: $1,073,394,813
Captain Marvel
Worldwide Box Office: $1,128,274,794
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Worldwide Box Office: $1,131,927,996
*Disney’s Marvel Studios produced Spider-Man: Far From Home while Sony handled distribution. Therefore, the film’s box office earnings doesn’t technically count towards Disney’s total for the year.
Frozen II
Worldwide Box Office: $1,165,209,889 (to date as the film is still screening in cinema)
Aladdin
Worldwide Box Office: $1,050,693,953
The only non-Disney movies to crack the top 10 in North America this year were Joker ($333.3 million) and IT Chapter Two ($211.5 million) – both titles produced by Warner Bros.
Disney has officially become the first studio in history to bring in $10 billion at the box office in a single year, and that total doesn’t count Spider-Man: Far From Home, nor does it account for the Fox titles the studio distributed following the $71.3 billion merger of the two companies earlier this year. Thus, Disney has han alarmingly good year and the competition is, without doubt, struggling to accomplish even a fraction of that success financially.
Disney’s 2020 release schedule is far less packed with anticipated movies. However, there are a few major titles including a live-action adaptation of Mulan and Black Widow and The Eternals from Marvel.
Watch trailers:
Mulan:
Black Widow:
Disney’s box office dominance is poised to continue in the new decade, as they will now be in full control of Fox content moving forward, with X-Men and Fantastic Four being two example franchises that can be used for further financial wins.
Contact a member of our sales team for cinema advertising opportunities alongside Disney Blockbusters in the upcoming year!
Sources: The Verge, CinemaBlend and The Numbers.
Look out …. here comes the Spidey!
Spider-Man marks his much-anticipated return this July with Spider-Man: Far from Home – symbolizing a new era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it moves beyond the aftermath of ‘Thanos’.
Not only will this be the first movie since Marvel’s earth-shattering release – Avengers: Endgame, but also the second solo movie in the Spider-Man narrative starring the iconic ‘Queens superhero’ (Tom Holland), who will be joined by Quentin Beck aka Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) – one of Spider-Man’s oldest and most iconic arch-enemies.
The movie’s most recent trailer offered the first look at the post-Endgame Marvel Cinematic Universe – along with substantial Avengers: Endgame spoilers, and also provided confirmation on the existence of alternate universes (Multiverse) when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) introduced Peter Parker to Mysterio, who revealed himself to be a man from an alternate dimension – Earth-833.
The trailer – which released on Monday 6th May 2019, had the biggest digital launch in Sony Entertainment’s history with over 135 million views in 24-hours.
Avengers: Endgame broke records and surpassed Titanic (1997) as the second highest grossing movie of all time with US$2.5 billion in worldwide revenue – including Dh40 million at UAE box office, and Spider-Man: Far from Home is expected to halo this tremendous success. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) ranked 4th in ‘UAE’s Top 10 Movies of 2017’ – screening for a period of 16 weeks and doing over 380K admissions. As per our analysis, Spider-Man: Far from Home will have forecasted admissions of approximately 400K.
If the trailer is anything to go by, Disney seems to be giving fans the indication that Spider-Man is gearing up to be the focal point of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in our now ‘post-Tony Stark world’.
Don’t miss out on advertising alongside this mega blockbuster!
Contact a member of our sales team for more information on cinema advertising opportunities.
Sources: Digital Trends, Digital Spy, Slash Films and TechnoBuffalo
Summer is officially upon us!
As the temperature reaches fever pitch over the months ahead and outdoor activities become close to impossible, cinema offers an ideal escape from the heat. Cool down by sipping a cold soda or an icy slush, indulge in deliciously flavoured popcorn and watch some of the best content the industry has to offer.
Q1 2019 witnessed the release of a number of blockbusters – from M. Night Shyamalan’s psychological thriller Glass, Bollywood’s first rap-based movie Gully Boy and a record-breaking comedy-adventure movie Total Dhamaal, to sci-fi blockbuster Alita: Battle Angel and Oscar winner Jordan Peele’s US.
No doubt those movies were big, but what lies ahead is even bigger!
At the start of Q2, we watched Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame sink the Titanic (1997) to gain the spot of being the second highest grossing movie of all-time. With the remaining months of Q2 and Q3 set to deliver an array of blockbusters – rom-coms, animation, horror, thriller, superhero sagas and much more, get ready to be blown away!
Here’s our compilation of must watch movies over Summer 2019:
Aladdin – Releasing on May 23rd 2019
Godzilla: King of the Monsters – Releasing on May 30th 2019
Ma – Releasing on May 30th 2019
The Hustle – Releasing on June 6th 2019
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum – Releasing on June 6th 2019
Dark Phoenix – Releasing on June 6th 2019
Bharat (Hindi) – Releasing on June 6th 2019
Rocketman – Releasing on June 13th 2019
Shaft – Releasing on June 13 2019
The Zoya Factor– Releasing on June 13th 2019
*Awaiting the release of the trailer
Toy Story 4 – Releasing on June 20 2019
Men in Black: International – Releasing on June 20th 2019
Yesterday – Releasing on June 27th 2019
Annabelle Comes Home – Releasing on June 27th 2019
Spider-Man: Far From Home – Releasing on July 4th 2019
The Lion King – Releasing on July 18th 2019
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw – Releasing on August 1st 2019
Artemis Fowl – Releasing on August 8th 2019
Where’d You Go, Bernadette – Releasing on August 8th 2019
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Releasing on August 15th 2019
It: Chapter Two – Releasing on September 5th 2019
Please Note: Movie release dates are subject to change.
What does this mean for brands/advertisers?
Reach out to a larger and more captive audience – who rather be cooling down indoors over a movie.
Capitalize on re-targeting audiences as they re-visit cinemas to watch not one but multiple movies over summer – which also leads to greater brand recall.
Don’t miss out on giving your brand the best screen treatment it deserves this summer. Contact a member of the sales team for more information on cinema advertising opportunities.
