Disney Still Reigned Supreme Across The Globe In 2022
Disney was 2022's highest-grosser at the box office globally.
The House of Mouse is number one for the seventh year in a row, with Disney properties raking in almost $5 billion at box offices both at home and abroad in 2022. Deadline reports that the studio is also the highest earner this year domestically, with $2 billion of that total being from the United States, more than any of its competitors. Disney and its holdings have had several successful releases throughout the year, including the pre-Christmas sensation that was Avatar: The Way of Water.
Disney is the parent company for a lot of studios, including 20th Century Fox, Marvel Studios, LucasFilm, Searchlight Pictures, and Pixar, which broadens the entertainment giant’s odds of succeeding at the box office. It also owns the rights to several extremely popular properties beyond the classic Disney library, including the Star Wars franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This has helped them hold the top spot since 2016, and 2022 has proven to be one of their best years ever.
Avatar: The Way of Water broke the record set earlier this year by Top Gun: Maverick, earning Disney almost $1 billion at the box office independent of other properties. While Disney was well-poised to be competitive without this boon, the movie propelled the studio conglomerate well over the earnings of its competition. Universal Studios had the second-highest gross in 2022 with $3.9 billion, which shows that Avatar simply had to be released for Disney to reign.
Avatar: The Way of Water may have contributed a great deal to Disney’s 2022 success at the box office, but it was the icing on the cake of a very good year for the various Disney properties. Three Marvel Cinematic Universe movies – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Dr. Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder – raked in a combined $2.5 billion, and the outings of Black Panther and Dr. Strange accounted for two more of 2022’s top four releases. The Pixar release Lightyear was the second-highest-grossing animated film of the year, bringing in another $226 million.
Other more independent releases also factored into Disney’s success at the box office in 2022, including Death on the Nile, The Menu, The Banshees of Inisherin, and Barbarian, all of which have brought in both ticket sales and critical acclaim. The Menu is still in theaters at this time, and The Banshees of Inisherin is being mentioned in a lot of prominent Oscar conversations, which only validates the strength of the studio’s releases this year. A re-release of the original Avatar movie ahead of the sequel’s opening also helped by contributing almost $80 million.
The future also looks bright for Disney as upcoming releases promise even more box-office success for 2023. Two anticipated Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, join the live-action version of The Little Mermaid, the animated feature Elemental, and the final outing of Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It looks like Disney may take the lead in 2023, but will they top the box office eight years in a row?
