Universal beats Disney as the highest-grossing studio at the box office of 2023

Thanks to Mario, J. Robert Oppenheimer and M3GAN, Universal Pictures is ranked as the top-grossing studio at the box office of 2023.

The company's slate — a collection of 24 films that included “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “Oppenheimer” and “M3GAN” — has amassed $4.907 billion in ticket sales worldwide. Universal's victory is notable because it marks the first time since 2015 that Disney was not the global box office leader.

Disney fell to second place in terms of market share with the debut of 17 new films titled “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. The films “Indiana Jones and the Connection of Destiny” and “The Little Mermaid” achieved revenues amounting to $4.827 billion worldwide, in third place. In a note to the press, the studio partly attributed the $80 million difference to the fact that Disney released seven fewer films than Universal in 2023. It also went on to stress that Disney had the most titles of any studio in the top 10 this year, with four of the highest-grossing international releases and three of the biggest domestic releases.

But for the first time in a long time, Disney doesn't have any of the top three films, those spots belong to Warner Bros. “Barbie” ($1.4 billion) and “Super Mario Bros. Movie,” produced by Universal ($1.3 billion) and Oppenheimer ($950 million). It is also the first time since 2014 that no Disney film has crossed the $1 billion mark.

Disney already remains a juggernaut at the box office, but the reality is that most of the studio's 2023 mainstays have failed to live up to expectations. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” ($845 million) was the only clear win. Otherwise, a string of underperforming sequels and remakes (“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “The Marvels,” and “Haunted Mansion” to name one example) resulted in the studio ceding the box office crown to Universal.

It's worth noting that many of Disney's modest victories or even outright failures could be classified as crushing successes for its competitors. The problem is that Disney films are expensive — their production budgets typically range from $200 million to $250 million — so they need to be passed over in terms of profitability. So, while “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” was the 10th highest-grossing film of the year with $476 million, it ended up losing money for the studio in its theatrical run.

Universal also had a few missteps, but none of them were particularly painful. Vampire comedy “Renfield” fell to $26 million worldwide, and “Book Club: The Next Chapter” failed to reach $30 million worldwide (the first film grossed $100 million in 2018). The animated film “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” barely made $45 million. . Although Fast

While Universal and Disney were competing fiercely for the top spot, they were far ahead of the rest. Warner Bros. came along. In third place by a large margin with revenues of $3.84 billion worldwide, led by “Barbie,” “The Nun II,” and “Wonka.”

Sony and Paramount have not announced final revenues for 2023, but each studio reportedly brought in $2 billion globally to round out the top five.

With Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Denzel Washington's Equalizer 3, and Ridley Scott's Napoleon in its 2023 production lineup, Sony has a slight advantage with estimated revenue of $2.09 billion worldwide.

As for Paramount, whose most important releases were “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” and “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” it ended the year with revenues estimated at about $2.03 billion at the global level. the world.