There are name brands, like Microsoft or Hershey, that are huge. You see the names plastered everywhere you go, and you aren’t even a little surprised when someone mentions them—they just are. It’s almost hard to picture a world without them.
And then there’s Disney.
Sure, in the 60s and the 70s, the entertainment company hit a bit of a rough patch (Dinosaur, anyone?), but ever since The Little Mermaid came out in 1989, the Disney brand has regained its fame and has ever since maintained its iconic status with hardly a stutter.
But last year? In 2016, while the rest of the world was lamenting about what a sucky year it was…Disney annihilated the competition.
Don’t believe me?
Here’s the list of the highest grossing movies of 2016.
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Finding Dory
- Captain America: Civil War
- The Secret Life of Pets
- The Jungle Book (2016)
- Deadpool
- Zootopia
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
- Suicide Squad
- Sing
Keep in mind: Disney owns LucasFilm and Marvel now.
Even though we can’t count Deadpool as a Disney movie (while Deadpool is a Marvel character, he’s not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the rights actually belong to Fox), this means that 4 out of the top 5 movies of 2016 were Disney, as were half of the top ten.
To put this into perspective, let’s look at the money.
Here’s how much each movie made during its opening weekend:
- Rogue One: $155,081,681
- Finding Dory: $135,060,273
- Captain America: Civil War: $179,139,142
- The Secret Life of Pets: $104,352,905
- The Jungle Book: $103,261,464
- Deadpool: $132,434,639
- Zootopia: $75,063,401
- Batman v Superman: $166,007,347
- Suicide Squad: $133,682,248
- Sing: $35,258,145
Too lazy to whip out the calculators? No worries, I’ll do it for you. From these numbers, Disney made $647,605,961 whereas Warner Bros made $299,689,595, Universal Studios made $139,611,050, and Fox barely made $132,434,639.
That’s insane. Disney made almost twice as much as its competitors combined on opening weekends out of the ten highest grossing movies of the year. The number inflates even higher if you look at the overall box office performance, and not just opening weekends.
And if that’s not enough to convince you that Disney owned 2016, I’d like to add that numbers 11 and 12 on this list, Moana and Doctor Strange, are also Disney. (Sorry fellow Potterheads—Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is barely number 13!)
Frankly, the only Disney films this year that weren’t ridiculously successful were The BFG, Pete’s Dragon (which, to be fair, wasn’t very successful in 1977 either) and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Guess the Bandersnatch wasn’t as frumious as Lewis Carroll thought. (Oh, also The Finest Hours, which I don’t think anyone really remembers.)
Disney’s phenomenal success last year can absolutely be attributed to their acquisition of Pixar, Marvel, and LucasFilms. After all, remove those movies from this list, and Disney’s left with The Jungle Book and Zootopia (and Moana), which, granted, were still incredibly successful films, but pulled in more typical results for the industry.
Tl;dr: If you want to become a master strategist in business, pay close attention to Disney.
Will 2017 be as lucrative as 2016 for Disney? Depends.
They’ve got some exciting movies planned, starting with Beauty & The Beast which will probably outperform all previous Disney live-action remakes. After that comes Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 which looks just as awesome as the first and Cars 3, which, after the teaser and the trailer, might actually turn out to be really good. Next on the line is another Pirates of the Caribbean movie (which, if I’m honest, I had no idea about until I wrote this article) and Thor: Ragnarok (if you’re not stoked for this movie, you’re lying). Finishing the year up will be Coco, Disney’s first animated feature film centered on Latin America, and finally, Star Wars: Episode VIII.
…Yes, I think it’s pretty safe to say 2017 is going to be another amazing year for Disney.