It could well be another great year for Disney. Although ticket sales at theaters have been on a steady decline over the past few years, Disney's dream run at the box office continues, with the company already raking in a staggering $10 billion globally from its box office titles this year.
The Walt Disney Company is on track to become the most successful studio once again this year, as Frozen II continues to dominate the box office globally. The earlier record was also held by Disney, which the company set in 2016 but this year is likely to surpass all previous highs.
Disney's dream run continues
Disney had an impressive last year with quite a few of its titles like Black Panther and Infinity War and Incredibles 2 helping the studio score big at both the domestic and international box office.
Disney this year has already amassed more than $10 billion from its global box office collections. The collection represents 31.6% of the total money made by the U.S. film industry in 2019. Moreover, this year's haul is way ahead of $7.6 billion posted by Disney in 2016, which so far had been the highest a studio has ever earned in history.
This year the company released six of the eight top grossing films, with Avengers: Endgame setting multiple new records at the box office. Earlier this year, Avengers: Endgame became the highest grossing film in history, collecting $2.798 billion at the global box office. The other titles that helped Disney take a lead in the race this year are Toy Story 4, Captain Marvel and The Lion King.
Business strategy helping Disney
The entertainment has had a difficult decade so far but Disney's success has been an exception. And a lot of it has to do with the strategic acquisition it has made over the past few years. Disney toady owns more than 70% of the biggest franchises in the world.
In 2006, Disney bought animation studio Pixar for $7.4 billion that made it the owner of popular titles like Toy Story and a Bug's Life. Three years later it shelled out $4.3 billion to acquire Marvel. This was one of the biggest strategic moves to broaden its library. Marvel got Disney access to comic book characters like Iron Man, Captain America and Thor.
In 2012, it spent $4.05 billion to get Lucasfilm, thus owning titles like Indiana Jones and Star Wars. With so much in its library now Disney is well on track to dominate the global film industry. And if streaming services are anything that Disney should feel threatened of, the company has taken up the challenge with the launch of Disney + streaming services last month.
