They could do it this year, if Moana, Dr. Strange and Rogue: One do well, and BFG and Pete's Dragon aren't complete flops. They're sure to at least break 5 billion worldwide this year at this point.
Ya, I wanted to make a post about that at some point in a follow up to the fastest to 1 billion one. Kind of wish there was more of a dedicated thread for movie talk (that wasn't the nearly vacant sub-forum). So I'm just going to write an essay here instead - since Spirit is on a sabbatical and all.
3 billion requires everything to align, and it almost did. Alice is probably the biggest (although somewhat expected) underperformance that is going to cause the year to putter out just below the 3 billion mark, I'm thinking.
BFG and Pete's Dragon are not going to be hits. That doesn't particularly matter for the sake of Disney's overall year, but it matters for the sake of feeling confident about 3 billion.
On the flip side, Disney is 100% guaranteed to pass Universal's 2015 year for the reasons below...
The currently released films are taking them to approximately
2 billion more or less. That's a done deal.
-Moana simply doesn't have enough time to move the meter one way or another. If it's successful, that success will play akin to Zootopia and Frozen and will come with the legs of the film adding to the start of 2017. It's going to be adding
200 million to the year regardless of it settling on the Tangled/BH6 side of things or Frozen/Zootopia path.
-It would be ill advised to think that Dr. Strange is going to completely buck the trend of first-go Marvel fare. GoTG had the "team up" bonus going for it. Really, one way or the other. It's probably another
200 mil +/-.
-Even if Rogue one "flops", it's still a Star Wars movie, it will just be very front loaded and have zero legs in that case. A third of Episode VII's business with it being mostly front-loaded would still add the very lowball
250 million to 2016. I think assuming it will be Episode VII and add 600 million to the year is an outrageous expectation. It will probably do more than 250, but I'm first just laying a pessimistic scenario.
-I really wouldn't stake much more than
100 million and change from BFG/Pete's Dragon combined. The change is more of an insurance policy on a new Marvel/Disney Princess movie being the firsts to miss the mark, which is always in the realm of possibility
So pretty much
2.75 billion in a less optimistic scenario. Lots of wiggle room against Universal's 2.45.
So where could the 250 be made up? It could be, but it's not perfect odds.
-Moana can't help, as I stated.
-Dr. Strange seems pre-destined as a first-go solo Marvel movie.
-Maybe the BFG has legs, reviews are ok, tracking isn't. It could do more than I'm giving it credit for.
-Maybe Rouge One drags in 450-500 for this year, but to do that would be "guaranteeing" it is a top 5 all time domestic earner. That's a bold assumption, it's possible. Is it "for sure" a lifetime 600 million+ movie though? I think 2/3rds of Episode VII would make it a great success. Rouge One is
probably what the 3 billion is riding on now.
-Just given this summer, my personal faith in Pete's Dragon is low. Who knows, maybe it's going to soar way past 100 on its own and make everything easier.
-Maybe Finding Dory is a 500+ million earner. I was working on the assumption it's settling in the 4's. 500 million is such a black-box though, everything seems to putter out historically in the 4's or just sail past into the 6's.
I'll conclude with is it sure would have been a heck of a lot easier if Alice had made 60% of the original instead of 25%. So while they have very little to complain about with Zootopia/Jungle Book/Finding Dory (thus far) overtaking expectations, Alice went from a record maker to a record breaker, in one sequel, in more ways than one. I'm not dismissing Captain America's great performance, but it
was an Avengers movie more or less.
