It's only February 2023, but Disney is already dominating the box office for the year. Just six weeks into the year and they have already earned $1 billion in global box office sales. To date, the specific number is actually $1.283 billion. Historically, it has taken other studios up to a full year to reach those numbers. These impressive numbers are all thanks to the combined box office numbers of Avatar: The Way of Water and Marvel's introduction to phase 5 of the MCU, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Additionally, the re-release of Titanic for the film's 25th anniversary gave an additional $383 million domestically and $900 million internationally.
The long and impressive Avatar sequel by James Cameron is the primary reason for Disney's impressive gross. Over the weekend, Avatar: The Way of Water reached a total earning of $2.2433 billion worldwide. This means that the film has officially surpassed Titanic ($2.2428 billion) as the third-highest-grossing movie of all time. In the same weekend, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opened in theaters worldwide and performed above expectations. The film earned an impressive $225 million in its first weekend alone.
Disney's Box-Office Sensation
Reportedly, this is only the first of the many billions that Disney is expected to make in 2023. With movies like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5), The Little Mermaid remake (May 26), Elemental (June 16), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (June 30), and The Marvels (November 10), media sources have high expectations for the studio at hand. However, the box office has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. Before COVID-19, Disney broke records, generating $7 billion in 2016 and 2018. Then, in 2019, it broke its own record with $11.12 billion. That's the biggest collective box office gross of any studio in history.
Disney ended 2022 with a $4.9 billion gross at the box office, which includes domestic and international sales. Of that, Avatar: The Way of Water was the only pandemic-era release to hit a billion in gross box office sales. Shawn Robins, chief analyst at BoxOfficePro had something to say about this. He explained, “Disney was coming off such a historic run of box office years that even without the pandemic or streaming-intense strategies, it would have been a challenge to duplicate. Nevertheless, this is an encouraging start to 2023. It will still take some time, but this may be the beginning of an important turnaround for the biggest studio in the world.”
[Via]