2023 saw Universal end Disney’s dominant seven-year run as global box office champs, thanks to huge successes like Oppenheimer and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
It was a close race in the end, but Universal has pipped Disney to the post and taken the crown for the highest global box office haul in 2023.
The studio’s victory ends Disney’s annual dominance of the box office, a run that began in 2016 and saw the House of Mouse eclipse other studios for seven years in a row.
Universal released seven more films than its rival, with the studio’s 24 films earning an estimated $4.91 billion in worldwide ticket sales, compared to an estimated $4.83 billion from Disney’s 17 movies.
As we said, it was a pretty close race both in the US and internationally, but Universal’s triumph validates its strategy of putting out a blend of titles, including action, horror, drama, animation (we know it’s not a genre, please don’t come after us, Guillermo del Toro!) and more.
Of course, the two largest contributors to Universal’s success were Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros Movie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which earned two of the top three spots of the year behind Warner Bros’ Barbie.
However, there were plenty of other projects which contributed too, such as Five Nights At Freddy’s or M3GAN, which hopefully reminds other studios of the value in a diverse slate that contains projects with budgets of different sizes.
Disney has increasingly made fewer films as time has gone on, with those projects becoming increasingly expensive. Although the race was a close one, Universal’s victory stands out as a win for diverse studio slates rather than franchise-centric blockbusters. And that can’t be bad news, right?
Warner Bros came in third with $3.84bn while Sony was in fourth with just over $2bn. It’s early days yet, but it will be interesting to see which studio begins 2024 with a string of successes, given that the box office crown is definitely up for grabs again.
