With four months to go, 2016 has seemed a mixed bag at the box office so far, according to many a media story. But that impression is a false one, as the real numbers demonstrate (which I'll get to momentarily). Regardless of one's perception of the year's financial outlook to date, nobody has any question about who the real winner so far has been. Disney currently has the top four highest-grossing movies of 2016, all in the $900 million to $1 billion range, and looks to add at least a couple more to that grouping by year's end. It's an incredible accomplishment, worth more than $4 billion and counting, and by year's end Disney will probably add another $2 billion to their box office cume.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of Disney's films and accomplishments, a few words to clarify why the impression of a bad year at the box office is really a misleading way to view the situation. Granted, the Summer season is down and had several underperformers and a few flops, but on the other hand, Spring enjoyed a huge increase and if we spread the traditional summer blockbusters from Spring over to Summer (meaning Deadpool and Batman v Superman) then the outlook changes dramatically.
In fact, year to date the box office in 2016 is up 4.6% from last year, which itself saw an increase of 5.6% over 2014 during the period from January 1st through August 24th. The upcoming slate of films from September through December -- which includes The Magnificent Seven, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Storks, Trolls, Doctor Strange, Arrival, Moana, and Assassin's Creed to name a few of the higher-profile releases -- looks likely to deliver enough revenue for 2016 to improve upon last year's record-setting box office totals.
So that's the real context for 2016's year in film to date, and how things look going forward until the New Year. Keep that in mind next time someone tells you this has been an awful year, or that the slumps and flops are the dominant reality at the box office. Now, about that remarkable success Disney is having...
Right now, the top four films at the global box office are Captain America: Civil War ($1.15 billion), Zootopia ($1.02 billion), The Jungle Book ($955.6 million), and Finding Dory ($916.4 million). The Jungle Book and Finding Dory continue to add several million dollars per week to their totals, with The Jungle Book holding strong in Japan where it just opened two weekends ago and Finding Dory having most of Europe left in which to open later this month and through September (which means it will probably make a run at $1 billion). These numbers are so big, only a very few movies left this year have any realistic chance of topping these four Disney pictures.
Which remaining films this year have the best shot at breaking into the top four or five? Only three movies seem to have any chance, and two of them are Disney films. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them from Warner Bros. certainly is among the contenders too, and if it's good enough then we can expect a performance anywhere from perhaps $800 million to the $1 billion range. The other two are the animated Disney film Moana, and the next Star Wars release at Christmas. The latter is almost certainly going to perform in the $1 billion range, while the former has the sort of potential huge international appeal to make it a strong candidate for hitting like the other Disney animated release this year.
If we assume Fantastic Beasts will break the top four, and if we assume Star Wars plays as realistically expected, then Disney will have at least five of the top six highest-grossing movies of 2016. If Moana also performs anywhere north of $872+ million, then Disney will land six of the seven top-grossing movies for 2016.
Just to give you a visual aid so you get a real sense of what this is going to look like, allow me to offer this hypothesis for the possible final top-seven list at year's end...
1. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($1.1+ billion)
2. Captain America: Civil War ($1.1+ billion)
3. Zootopia ($1+ billion)
4. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ($900 million to $1 billion)
5. Finding Dory ($950+ million to $1 billion)
6. The Jungle Book ($960-970 million)
7. Moana ($875-900+ million)
There is a chance that The Secret Life of Pets could wind up holding so strong in existing markets and performing so well in new markets that it has the power to push up into the top seven while Moana might stall and fall a bit short, but I don't think that'll wind up happening. I'm sure Pets will do well, I just have a lot of confidence in Moana.
It's important to do some debunking of certain anti-Disney talking points here. Look again at that top-seven list above. Those Disney films are all pretty unique, with strong creative visions behind them and complex characterizations in well-written stories. So any claim that Disney's success is simply due to cookie-cutter productions or mass-appeal that loses flavor, or that films appealing to kids and families are somehow less valuable or have less artistic merit, is a myopic attitude that does a great disservice to the great talent and hard work that went into these films. And I'd particularly caution anyone who is a fan of superhero films, sci-fi, or fantasy from resorting to such dismissive "family-friendly fare isn't REAL cinema" assertions, since that's precisely the sort of attitude used by other people to dismiss the seriousness and quality of comics as a medium, of comic book films as artistically valid, and so on.
Disney's animation and family films are of particular note, because -- as I've mentioned in other articles recently -- animation has been enjoying a great renaissance for a number of years now, as the genre puts out a wider variety of styles and storytelling than just about any other genre at the moment. I often say what a great time this is to be a superhero/comics fan because of the golden era we're experiencing for those films, but if you love animation and family cinema then now is truly an awe-inspiring era. It's not merely Disney, obviously, as we are seeing so much terrific animation from so many studios these days. But Disney-Pixar certainly lead the way and set the standard for quality animated storytelling in modern filmmaking, and so they are reaping the benefits at the global box office.
Meanwhile, in that superhero genre I mentioned, Disney-Marvel's cinematic universe has defined the modern superhero film and the shared-universe concept. We can love the DC movies at Warner and love the X-Men films at Fox and love the Spider-Man movies at Sony, and everyone is entitled to their preferences for entertainment, but nobody should deny the obviousness of the truth that the MCU has inspired a whole new approach to superhero moviemaking, and has largely defined the world's tastes and expectations when it comes to the genre as a whole.
That isn't to say audiences don't want and demand variety. They do, and that's, in fact, a key to Marvel's success. The Marvel films, on the one hand, do obviously maintain an overall "look" and "feel" to ensure the films all fit together as part of a single larger world and narrative; but on the other hand, each Marvel film is definitely of a particular sub-genre (political conspiracy thriller, buddy-cop movie, heist comedy, sword-and-sandals fantasy, period-piece war romance, sci-fi space adventure, etc) and -- despite all the claims of formulaic storytelling and filmmakers not pursuing creative visions -- each film bears the unmistakable stamp, style, and sensibilities of their director. Anyone who thinks Thor or Captain America: The First Avenger or Iron Man 3 or The Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy and so on would look the same with a different director, is just not paying attention.
Audiences get enough familiarity to know they are getting what they love about Marvel films, but enough diversity of approach and storytelling to enjoy the variation and differences too. That's why Marvel has had such great success, why they dominate the genre right now, and why they were able to build a large shared universe of characters that inspired everyone else to do the same with other properties.
The remaining top ten grossing films of the year will probably be pulled from among Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Deadpool, The Secret Life of Pets, Doctor Strange, and/or maybe another animated feature (Storks or Trolls). I'm guessing it'll be the first three on that list, with The Secret Life of Pets possibly topping Deadpool (but never bet against the Merc with a Mouth). However, if you look at the year's current top ten films and top fifteen films, you'll notice that there is a big jump in box office totals from the elite tier and the rest of the batch. I think we'll wind up with a final top 15 list in which anything with less than $600 million doesn't make the cut and more likely nothing with less than $700 million winds up higher than perhaps number fifteen or sixteen on the list of the year's highest-grossing releases.
What this tells me is, Disney is probably going to have seven films on the list of 2016's top fifteen highest-grossing movies, if Doctor Strange performs at roughly the $600 million level, and it'll definitely make the year's top twenty list. If it manages any sort of breakout toward the $700-800 million level -- certainly nowhere near a given, but also entirely possible -- and if The Secret Life of Pets and a couple of late-year releases perform a little weaker, then hypothetically Disney could wind up with seven of the top ten films at year's end. Not necessarily the most likely scenario, but the fact that it's even possible (and not in a wild-odds manner, either) says something about the strength of Disney's position.
So look at that hypothetical list of seven films above, and add Batman v Superman at #8, Deadpool at #9, and Doctor Strange at #10. It's hard to believe a single studio has the potential to achieve such an outcome, but here we are. It's also worth noting that four of the films are superhero movies, by the way, so keep this list handy when you read the next "audiences are tired of superhero movies" article.
By year's end, Disney will be likely be sitting on a box office grand total of at least $6.5 billion, with at least the potential to climb toward $7 billion. They'll have at least six of the top ten highest-grossing films of the year, and likely seven of the top fifteen highest-grossing films of the year. It's an unprecedented set of achievements, and if you really want to boggle your own mind then just consider what the merchandising revenue stream must be for all of these films -- because as impressive as all that box office money is, the merchandise is the true cash cow when it comes to revenue, after all.
Box office figures and tallies based on data via Box Office Mojo , Rentrak, and TheNumbers.
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