The Force Awoken
Disney’s insanely great 2016 at the box office
It looks like Rogue One will win the domestic box office for the fourth straight weekend. And, at some point next week, it will become the top-grossing movie released in 2016. It will cross $500 million domestically — becoming just the 7th movie ever (not adjusted for inflation) to do so.
At the box office, Disney had one hell of a 2016. One so good, that it makes their competition look decidedly, well, uncompetitive. The movie that Rogue One is about to knock off the top of the box office perch for the year is Finding Dory — a movie also, of course, released by Disney (Pixar). Following those two at number three for the year was Captain America: Civil War — a movie also, of course, released by Disney (Marvel).
In fact, six of the top ten highest grossing films domestically that were released in 2016 belong to Disney. The next closest studio is Warner Brothers, with two.¹ And, when Moana passes Fantastic Beasts next week, Disney will hold seven of the top eleven films of 2016. That’s incredible.
There were a few duds — notably, Alice Through the Looking Glass and The BFG — but the percentage of not just hits, but huge hits, seems unparalleled. And this is the year after Disney held three of the top four films of 2015 — topped by the highest grossing film, domestically (again, not inflation adjusted), of all time: The Force Awakens.²
The common thread in this domination is obvious: Disney has been absolutely brilliant when it comes to acquiring companies and integrating their associated IP. It sounds like Disney is not on the hunt right now for another such deal, but as ESPN continues to falter, there may be increasing pressure to keep rolling those dice. Certainly, if/when CEO Bob Iger steps down/retires (slated for 2018, but with still no obvious successor, we’ll see), there will be a lot of calls for this. Lego? Nintendo? Something else?³
All top three films of 2016 came from deals Iger has done over the past decade (Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm). It’s getting to the point where it’s hard to decide which of those deals should be deemed the most successful, because they all can make good claims. Right now, it’s probably 1) Pixar 2) Marvel and 3) Lucas — but only because that’s the order in which they were acquired. When all is said and done, that list could well be inverted.⁴
A year and a half ago, I wrote about Disney’s $4 billion “steal” in acquiring Lucasfilm. That was a few months before The Force Awakens was released. I guessed at the time that the first new Star Wars movie under Disney could do $2 billion at the box office (worldwide) alone. I was close.
Now Rogue One, a non-core film from the Star Wars universe, is going to add over a billion dollars more to that total. Yes, there are costs associated with making and marketing these films. And Disney doesn’t get to keep every dollar earned at the box office, of course. But there are also DVD/digital sales, syndication rights, merchandising rights, and a whole slew of other ways these properties add to Disney’s bottom line.
Disney really may already be in the black with regard to the acquisition, made just over four years ago. If not, they’re undoubtedly close. And Episode VIII, coming this holiday season, is going to push them far into the black. The least risky prediction in the world: it will be the highest grossing film of 2017. Keeping Disney atop the box office perch for another year.
¹ And both were DC comic properties — one of which, Batman v. Superman was bad, the other of which, Suicide Squad, was awful.
² At least in 2015, Universal gave Disney some competition, with three of the top 6 highest grossing films that year, including the number two with Jurassic World.
³ Netflix seems to be the thing currently generating the most buzz. And while it would be different than the other successful Disney deals, the company is increasingly building up its own portfolio of content. And the Reed Hastings/Ted Sarandos combo could certainly be interesting to set up a post-Iger Disney…
⁴ Though, you could always argue that Pixar really saved Disney in a bigger way because it brought John Lasseter back to head up not only Pixar but also all of Disney’s Animation Studios (see: Frozen).
