Three Disney films could top $1 billion this year after box office rut

After years of starts and stops at the box office, Disney appears to have hit a groove in 2024.

Its latest Pixar film, “Inside Out 2,” is now the highest-grossing animated film of all time, topping $1.5 billion at the global box office. Its first R-rated Marvel Cinematic Universe flick — “Deadpool & Wolverine” —broke opening weekend records for an R-rated film and is set to surpass the $1 billion mark before the end of its run.

And the box office hits aren’t expected to stop there.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, the studio is set to release “Moana 2,” the hotly anticipated sequel to 2016’s “Moana.” While the first film generated a little less than $700 million at the global box office, audience fervor for more “Moana” content is expected to drive high ticket sales in November. After all, it was the most streamed film of 2023.

Disney has already seen success from its animated franchises this year, as “Inside Out 2” has generated nearly double the $850 million its predecessor secured in 2015.

“The billion-dollar club, while growing ever less exclusive with each passing year, is no less a remarkable achievement for any film to join its ranks, particularly when one studio has the potential to land a trifecta of such hits for film released in the same year,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Such is the enviable position that Disney, after a fallow post-Pandemic period has returned to glory with a vengeance. They are in the midst of phenomenal comeback year for the studio.”

A wild card for the studio is December’s “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a prequel to 2019’s “The Lion King.” While its predecessor generated $1.6 billion at the global box office, more than $1.1 billion of which came from international audiences, it’s unclear what appetite moviegoers have for this photorealistically animated sequel.

Disney has long been a box office champion, driving significant ticket sales domestically and globally. While its theatrical business is a relatively small part of its overall annual revenues, its a large part of Disney’s wider strategy. The company uses its theatrical successes across many of its other departments. Franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, Avatar and Pixar have transcended the big screen to become popular theme park lands and TV shows, and characters from those films appear on merchandise.

Disney’s recent box office rut came at a time when its theme parks were growing rapidly and generating enough revenue to balance out other pieces of the business that were less successful or still in the process of becoming profitable, like streaming platform Disney+. However, in the most recent quarter, Disney parks and experiences segment felt pressure due to lower consumer demand and inflation.

Having its theatrical business return to form is key for Disney because of how it can fuel other areas of the business.

Disney churns out more billion-dollar hits than anyone in the business. Of the 53 titles that have achieved this feat at the box office, more than half, or 27, have been under the Disney banner, according to data from Comscore.

Two of those films — 2009’s “Avatar” and 1997’s “Titanic” — were produced by 21st Century Fox prior to the 2019 merger of the two companies, but are considered part of Disney’s collection of billion-dollar features. Additionally, two Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man films that were co-produced by Disney and Sony topped $1 billion. However, those are not included in Disney’s haul because they were distributed by Sony.

In the year before the pandemic, Disney had seven theatrical releases top $1 billion at the box office. However, theater closures and production shutdowns, coupled with a creative team that was stretched too thin, led to a cinematic slump for the company in recent years.

Audiences and critics bemoaned Disney’s push for quantity, which sacrificed quality in major franchises. The company was also criticized for allowing some of its content to become too focused on social messages.

While “Avatar: The Way of Water” became one of the top all-time box-office hits in 2022, and several Marvel features topped $800 million in global ticket sales, Disney also saw some of its lowest animated feature hauls in decades and its lowest-ever MCU release.

“Much has been said about a few of Disney’s underwhelming box office performances in recent years but it was always a fool’s errand to count the studio out for long,” said Shawn Robbins, founder and owner of Box Office Theory. “Their leadership made clear and convincing strategic moves to address the commercial struggles of several key releases coming out of the pandemic era … We’re starting to see the early dividends of that pivot back to quality franchise content and a renewed emphasis on the moviegoing experience.”

Disney’s CEO Bob Iger has addressed the company’s theatrical woes on several occasions since returning to the helm of the company in late 2022.

He admitted Disney’s fall from theatrical grace had a number of causes. He said that during Covid lockdowns, the company conditioned audiences to expect its films on streaming, and that pandemic-related restrictions made it difficult for executives to oversee its increased number of film and television productions. Additionally, he said the company’s push to feed Disney+ with new content diluted its quality.

Iger promised investors that Disney’s creatives would right the ship. And he appears to be making good on that pledge.

On Wednesday, he credited “Inside Out 2” for the company’s outperformance in its content sales and licensing division during the most recent quarter. The company noted that the first “Inside Out” drove more than 1.3 million Disney+ sign-ups and generated more than 100 million views globally since the first trailer for “Inside Out 2” was released last November.

He also touted the company’s slate of franchise features coming in the next few years.

“Let me just read to you the movies that we’ll be making and releasing in the next almost two years,” Iger said during Wednesday’s earning call. “We have ‘Moana,’ ‘Mufasa,’ ‘Captain America,’ ‘Snow White,’ ‘Thunderbolts*’, ‘Fantastic 4,’ ‘Zootopia,’ ‘Avatar,’ ‘Avengers,’ ‘Mandalorian’ and ‘Toy Story,’ just to name a few. And when you think about not only the potential of those in the box office but the potential of those to drive global streaming value, I think there’s a reason to be bullish about where we’re headed.”

Investors are expected to get a bigger glimpse into Disney’s theatrical plans during its biannual D23 Expo taking place in Anaheim, California this weekend.

“The past speaks for itself, but there’s no doubting the importance of Disney’s role in the industry’s present and future,” said Robbins. “If Marvel and Pixar continue their turnarounds, and if the Star Wars franchise can eventually execute a similar rebound under Lucasfilm, it won’t be long before the parent studio returns to some familiar box office prowess up and down the calendar each year.”