This year’s movie release calendar is full of potential blockbusters like Wonder Woman and The Fate of the Furious. However, several of the most anticipated films have one thing in common: Disney.
In 2016, Disney had six of the 10 top grossing movies in North America. It also had the top three movies of the year.
Finding Dory was the No.1 movie of 2016, with $486.3 million at the box office. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story secured a second-place finish and Captain America: Civil War took third place with $408.1 million.
Could Disney rule the box office once again in 2017?
Disney Tops Most Anticipated Movies List
Fandango released its list of the most anticipated movies of the year. It conducted a survey asking more than 2,000 moviegoers which movies they are most excited to see.
The top five include Star Wars: Episode VIII (Dec. 15), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (May 5), Beauty and the Beast (March 17), Wonder Woman (June 2) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7).
Rounding out the top ten are Justice League, The Fate of the Furious, Fifty Shades Darker, Logan and Despicable Me 3.
Disney is behind three of the top five releases—four, if you factor in Homecoming, which is a Marvel/Sony co-production with Sony distributing.
Wonder Woman will likely be DC’s big winner.
If you take into consideration the fan fervor surrounding this year’s crop of films, Disney is likely to remain on top.
The trailer for Beauty and the Beast (No. 3 on the list) garnered 127.6 million views in the first 24 hours after its release online last year, smashing the record for most views in a day.
The Fifty Shades Darker trailer previous held the record with 114 million views in its first 24 hours, surpassing the Star Wars: The Force Awakens record of 112 million views.
Universal’s The Fate of the Furious (No. 7 on the list) later toppled Beauty and Beast, with 139 million views in its first day.
Disney’s Strategy
The media giant has spent the last several years expanding its portfolio with several acquisitions.
Disney CEO Bob Iger secured the purchase of Marvel ($4B), Pixar ($7.4B) and Lucasfilm ($4B). And the gamble is starting to pay off.
Those acquisitions have given Disney a wider library of characters and stories to pull from, making it a fierce competitor.
Last year, Disney became the first studio in history to cross $7 billion in global box office earnings.
Its success helped propel the North American box office to $11.4 billion, the highest-earning year in history, according to box office tracker comScore. The previous record of $11.14 billion was set in 2015.
Of course, not everything Disney released last year resulted in box office magic. The studio had several costly flops.
Alice Through the Looking Glass and The BFG resulted in the loss of millions of dollars.
