Forget fastest to 1 billion at the box office when will Disney reach 2 billion this year.

[WhatJaneSays]

Many travels later I return! In the last 4 weeks there has finally been some movement on the Disney front.

• Christopher Robin ended it's run at 99.2 million.
• The Nutcracker cracked even worse that the low expectations, bringing in less than 53 million so far into nearly 6 weeks.
• Ralph Breaks the Internet is preforming in the 8-10% range over the original Wreck-It Ralph, in a bit over 3 week it's at 143.3 million
• And somehow Incredibles 2 is still playing in over 60 theaters in it's 26th week? It's at 608.5 million and still gaining a few thousand daily.

While I had initially predicted Disney to crest the 3 billion mark in the week after Ralph Breaks the Internet came out they are still about 49.5 million away. The tanking of Nutcracker was far-and-away worse than all but the most dire forecasts. I'd honestly be surprised if Nutcracker was able to get beyond 55 million by year end, but it could always get an unexpected boost simply on the grounds of it being Christmas themed.

We're about a week out from Mary Poppins Returns and predictions are still all over the place. Depending on who is counting the Wed/Thurs numbers, the amount of competition, and just the general mood I've seen numbers as low as 25 million to over 50 million. Personalty I'd lean to the lower end for the opening weekend/5 day, but it will likely stay strong through the end of the year.

The standings so far:

1. Disney at 2.95 Billion - with just Mary Poppins Returns on 12/19
2. Universal at 1.69 Billion - with Mortal Engines starting tomorrow and Welcome to Marwen on 12/21
3. Warner Bros. at 1.64 Billion - with The Mule starting tomorrow, They Shall Not Grow Old on 12/17, and Aquaman on 12/21
4. Sony at 1.15 Billion - with Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse starting tomorrow and Holmes & Watson on 12/21
5. Fox at 1.05 Billion - with just Once Upon a Deadpool on 12/21

Also on 12/21 is Bumblebee, part of the Transformers franchise. That weekend is shaping up to be an interesting combo.

 

[WhatJaneSays]

The Incredibles 2 has ended it's domestic run on 12/13 at $608,581,744.

It landed at #3 for the year, after Avengers: Infinity War (#2) and Black Panther (#1). In the all time domestic it hit #9 making it the highest grossing animated film. World wide it's a bit over 1.24 billion, ranking it at #15.

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Tonight is the opening night events for Mary Poppins Returns. There don't seem to be any regular showings, only the Dolby fan event at (mostly?) AMCs. While these tickets are generally more expensive I don't expect typical "preview night" numbers for this sort of event film due to the very limited number of sell-able tickets.

Near me there are a number of theaters that have nearly sold out shows Wednesday evening, Friday evening and a few Saturday & Sunday. (For raw comparison sake: similar shows for Aquaman are about half as busy and Bumblebee is quite a bit lower.)

 

[Ripken10]

The Incredibles 2 has ended it's domestic run on 12/13 at $608,581,744.

It landed at #3 for the year, after Avengers: Infinity War (#2) and Black Panther (#1). In the all time domestic it hit #9 making it the highest grossing animated film. World wide it's a bit over 1.24 billion, ranking it at #15.

__

Tonight is the opening night events for Mary Poppins Returns. There don't seem to be any regular showings, only the Dolby fan event at (mostly?) AMCs. While these tickets are generally more expensive I don't expect typical "preview night" numbers for this sort of event film due to the very limited number of sell-able tickets.

Near me there are a number of theaters that have nearly sold out shows Wednesday evening, Friday evening and a few Saturday & Sunday. (For raw comparison sake: similar shows for Aquaman are about half as busy and Bumblebee is quite a bit lower.)

Everything I read (don't believe everything you read) is saying to expect Mary to do better in long term then this weekend. That Aquaman should easily double Mary for the weekend, but make less overall when all said and done (how often does that happen for two movies that open same weekend?). Does it have a chance at the #1 movie all time that didn't reach #1 for a single weekend (Sing at 270 million). I think it might, as it till probably take 3-4 weekends to overtake Aquaman, and while I can't pick a movie in the 3rd or 4th frame that would steal the top spot from either Aquaman or Mary, your still looking at less than 20 million for them to try to hold that top spot. I have seen projections for Mary to make over 300 million, so if it doesn't grab a #1 spot it could be a record breaker.

On a side note, personally I want to see both of these movies (high on my list). Obviously I am not a good representative of everybody, but if I were to see a movie in the theaters this weekend, even though I want to see both highly and think I will enjoy both, I would probably pick Mary due to the holiday. that's why I think Mary may do a little better than (experts are) expecting and Aquaman a little worse, but not because neither is better or worse than expected. But that may be just me.

 

[WhatJaneSays]

Everything I read (don't believe everything you read) is saying to expect Mary to do better in long term then this weekend. That Aquaman should easily double Mary for the weekend, but make less overall when all said and done (how often does that happen for two movies that open same weekend?). Does it have a chance at the #1 movie all time that didn't reach #1 for a single weekend (Sing at 270 million). I think it might, as it till probably take 3-4 weekends to overtake Aquaman, and while I can't pick a movie in the 3rd or 4th frame that would steal the top spot from either Aquaman or Mary, your still looking at less than 20 million for them to try to hold that top spot. I have seen projections for Mary to make over 300 million, so if it doesn't grab a #1 spot it could be a record breaker.

On a side note, personally I want to see both of these movies (high on my list). Obviously I am not a good representative of everybody, but if I were to see a movie in the theaters this weekend, even though I want to see both highly and think I will enjoy both, I would probably pick Mary due to the holiday. that's why I think Mary may do a little better than (experts are) expecting and Aquaman a little worse, but not because neither is better or worse than expected. But that may be just me.

That's not far off from my expectations! With MPR having a few days head start, I expect the hardcore to see it Wed/Thurs when they would have normally had to wait to Fri/Sat/Sun. It's going to spread what may have numbers-wise been a #1 weekend over 5 days; and in the case of all the other competition the long game is the way to win.

Having looked at the box office results from December 2017 into January, I would not be surprised if MPR has a similar track that the Greatest Showman did in it's post-holiday run. I could see it enjoying a nice long run with low drops and just grind it's way to over 300 million. There don't appear to be any heavy hitter family movies until the LEGO Movie 2 and How to Train Your Dragon 3 in February.

 

[seascape]

So far this year the combined Disney Fox box office has passed 4 billion in North America. Next year it should easily pass 5 billion and could come close to 6 billion. Disney has a great slate of movies and Fox has some very interesting ones too.

 

[WhatJaneSays]

Yeah ... boy next year is going to be an interesting calculation with the Fox buyout. I'm guessing I'm going to have to keep two spreadsheets going, one with the Disney branded/co-branded/distributed stuff and one with that plus the Fox stuff.

It's going to be particularly dicey as the official "day 1" of this is unknown and we don't know how the distribution will shake out. Personally I don't expect anything that's Fox branded to be swapped to Disney branding for at least a 1-3 years after the hand over. It's just going to be interesting how the industry is going to decide to count it when the time comes.

 

[jt04]

So far this year the combined Disney Fox box office has passed 4 billion in North America. Next year it should easily pass 5 billion and could come close to 6 billion. Disney has a great slate of movies and Fox has some very interesting ones too.

You should start a prediction thread for 2019. We likely will never see another year like it. I think Disney films (not including Fox) could hit 10 billion globally. All depends on Star Wars at the end of the year.

 

[seascape]

You should start a prediction thread for 2019. We likely will never see another year like it. I think Disney films (not including Fox) could hit 10 billion globally. All depends on Star Wars at the end of the year.

I was thinking about making a prediction on worldwide gross but did not want to go out an edge yet. However if Disney Fox combined worldwide box office doesn't exceed 11 billion it would be a very disappointing year.

 

[WhatJaneSays]

Provided the weekend estimates are correct Disney will cross 3 billion domestic today. And it should top the previous record from 2016 by a few thousand.

 

[WhatJaneSays]

Last weekend estimates for 2018: lets see how our studios are doing!

Disney is up top with 3.08 Billion, around 82k above their previous record. They also overtook their fastest to 1 billion record at 117 days (128 days previously in 2016). Disney remains the only studio to break the 3 Billion domestic mark (or the 2.5 Billion for that matter). It's been a year of wild over performances and near total tanks for them. The champs of the year are undeniably Black Panther and Infinity War, with a superhero trifecta of Incredibles 2; just those 3 movies would have put the studio in #2 at the world wide box office with 4.6 Billion.

While many would guess the tank of their year would be Solo with it's estimated 300 million budget, looking at the calculated ROI for it and the other under performing movies it seems that Wrinkle in Time is the no-prize for this year by just a tiny amount. (Technically Mary Poppins Returns is the low performer of the year right now ... but it's also only been out for 12 days, so that seems unfair.) Nutcracker also notably under performed on just raw numbers domestically, just not as badly overall due to it's slightly better foreign take.

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Warner Bros. at a fairly distant #2 with 1.91 Billion, had A Star is Born and Crazy Rich Asians beating out Fantastic Beasts 2 for top spots, with late entry Aquaman about to take the lead.

Universal at #3 with 1.76 Billion, had the Jurassic World follow up be king of the kingdom at #4 domestic (the only non-superhero movie in the top 5). And Dr. Seuss' The Grinch at #6.

Sony at #4 with 1.26 Billion, had an slightly unusual case of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, a 2017 movie making more in 2018 than any of it's 2018 releases. Venom was the runner up.

Fox at #5 with 1.08 Billion, had Deadpool 2 leading the charge with a rocking performance of Bohemian Rhapsody getting them over the Billion dollar mark.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Worldwide figures...

Ralph still has a dozen countries to debut in yet, but, he's in danger of being one of a very few Pixar movies that don't seem to turn a profit not profiting in it's theatrical window. And, of course, MPR still has weeks and weeks to go.

 

[WhatJaneSays]

I'll probably do my version of a breakdown once all the final numbers for all the studios come in from 2018. I might actually try to scrounge up some real marketing #s but most of my go to sources have been quiet/inaccurate lately.

 

[BrianLo]

Ralph still has a dozen countries to debut in yet, but, he's in danger of being one of a very few Pixar movies that don't seem to turn a profit in their theatrical window.

I'm going to be a tease and let you rethink this statement.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I'm going to be a tease and let you rethink this statement.

D'oh!

Not a Pixar movie.

 

[WhatJaneSays]

Year end recap time!

The final 2018 domestic Box Office for Disney clocked in at $3,092,343,747. This accounted for 26% of all domestic sales. And gave them both their personal and all studio best Box; 91.4 million over the 2016 number. They brought in over 136 million from 2017 releases. Across their 10 releases for 2018 they averaged 295 million each, even with 7 of them making less than that in 2018.

With a number of last minute corrections and re-release additions here's how the next 5 studios ranked:

• Warner Bros. at 1.94 Billion, with 23 new releases, 14 re-releases, and 11 hold overs for 48 total movies tracked
• Universal at 1.76 Billion, with 20 new releases, 1 re-release, and 2 hold overs for 23 total movies tracked
• Sony at 1.28 Billion, with 22 new releases and 5 hold overs for 27 total movies tracked
• Fox at 1.08 Billion, with 12 new releases and 5 hold overs for 17 total movies tracked
• Paramount at 757 Million, with 10 new releases and 2 hold overs for 12 total movies tracked

3 Disney movies entered the Top 10 all time domestic list. Taking in just shy of 2 Billion on their own, meaning those 3 alone would have guaranteed their #1 position this year.