The Walt Disney Company is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and it will also be seeing another huge year at the box office in 2023, with the mighty House of Mouse having already passed $1 billion this year. Despite many movie studios failing to reach that kind of number by the end of the year, Disney have not only achieved it but wildly surpassed it in the first 50 days of the year thanks to the success of Avatar: The Way of Water, Titanic and the new release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
According to Variety, the total of Disney’s worldwide box office is currently sitting at $1.283 billion, which includes the $225 million taken by Quantumania this weekend. The totals stack up with a $383 million haul in the U.S and $900 million internationally, a number that has been helped along by Avatar: The Way of Water being granted a release in China.
Of course, Disney’s reach at the box office has been hugely increased thanks to their acquisition of 20th Century Fox back in 2019, which is how Titanic also falls into their takings for the year. Naturally there is a lot of focus on the finances of Disney right now, with returning CEO Bob Iger revealing a wave of cost-cutting exercises that will take effect in the coming months as he steadies the ship.
Can Disney Break Its Own Record at the Box Office in 2023?
Naturally Disney has one of the biggest arsenals to hit the box office with of any major studio, so it is not surprising that they frequently blow away all competition to be the highest grossing box office haul of any year. The powerhouse already holds the record for the highest ever box office after taking $11.12 billion in 2019, a year that saw Disney being the studio behind 8 of the top 10 highest grossing movies. This included the behemoth that was Avengers: Endgame, along with The Lion King, Frozen II, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Toy Story 4 and Aladdin, which all took in excess of $1 billion each.
This year, there is no big Avengers movie coming, but Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Marvels will be following Quantumania from the Marvel Studios stable, and the summer will see the release of the live-action The Little Mermaid and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny which are both expected to be among the biggest hits of the year. Alongside these will be Haunted Mansion, which is now being released in July, the latest animated Pixar offering in the form of Elemental, and the latest Kenneth Branagh outing as Hercule Poirot in A Hunting In Venice.
While Disney has seen some struggles with their recent animated movies such as Strange Worlds, it has plenty of plates spinning that are almost as guaranteed to bring in big audiences as any movie is these days. While it is not likely that Disney will manage to break their 2019 record this year, there will be plenty more opportunities coming in the next few years as the Marvel Multiverse Saga reaches its conclusion, Star Wars is expected to be returning to the big screen for new movies, and James Cameron unleashes another three Avatar sequels.