Last year I wrote an article on the Box Office domination of Universal Pictures. Without question, that honor for 2016 goes to Disney. The Mouse House has already crossed the $4 billion mark worldwide and was the first to reach $1B domestically. And we’re not even halfway through the year.
Jan. & Feb.
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” continued to excel in theaters following its record-breaking December open. However, “The Finest Hours”, a true-story sea rescue drama, failed to connect with audiences, earning just $28 million.
March
“Zootopia”, Disney’s first non-Pixar animated film since 2014’s “Big Hero 6” benefited from excellent reviews, strong word-of-mouth, and no other major family film competition for six weeks. Memorial Day weekend marked “Zootopia”‘s 13th straight week in the Top 10, the longest consecutive run of any film since a little movie called “Frozen” stayed on the list for 16 weeks from Nov. 2013 to Mar. 2014.
April
OO-BEE-DOO: Who Knew? Jon Favreau’s updated version of “The Jungle Book” opened to $103 million and captured the family crowd for the entire rest of the Spring season.
May
“Captain America: Civil War” kicked-off Summer with a $180M bang. Bringing together nearly every Marvel superhero (and adding a few, including Black Panther and a new Spider-Man) helped earn rave reviews and repeat business. On the other hand, “Alice Through the Looking Glass” opened with a lackluster $27 million. Negative WOM, a six-year gap since the original, and star Johnny Depp’s divorce headlines all played a role. Nonetheless, Disney had four films: “Alice”, “Cap”, “Jungle” and “Zootopia” in the Memorial Day Weekend Top 10 – a major accomplishment. And if you had told me back in January that the latter three would all out-gross “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice”, I would have told you you were a little batty.
Warner Bros. will get its chance for revenge on four more occasions in 2016. On June 17, Disney unveils Pixar’s “Nemo” sequel, “Finding Dory”, which will go head-to-head with WB’s Dwayne Johnson/Kevin Hart comedy “Central Intelligence”. But if “Dory” loses, it’d be a shocker. The studios will battle for 4th of July holiday money with “The Legend of Tarzan” facing Steven Spielberg’s family-friendly “The BFG”. August 5 sees Warner’s release of the superhero action film “Suicide Squad”, which could stay at #1 into the following weekend when Disney releases their live-action version of “Pete’s Dragon”. And The Mouse House’s animated musical “Moana” opens Nov. 23, just five days after WB’s Harry Potter spinoff “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”.
And Disney’s acquisitions of Marvel and LucasFilm will continue to carry them right to the end of the year, with “Doctor Strange” (Nov. 4) and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (Dec. 16) projected to be box office powerhouses. In fact, if all goes as expected, Disney could finish with seven of the year’s Top 10 highest grossing films. That should make everyone, except maybe Johnny Depp, forget about how badly “Alice” bombed.
(Box Office and Release Date Credit: BoxOfficeMojo.com)