It has become increasingly clear that there are now only two camps in Hollywood: Disney and everyone else. Disney is a company that needs no introduction, however, they may need a refresher for casual movie fans at home. Over the past couple of years, Disney has worked to acquire some of the most high profile brands in the history of entertainment. From Marvel to Star Wars, and now the upcoming Fox deal, Disney has established themselves as the most dominant force in all of entertainment. In fact, it can be kind of worrying if you start to think about how much stake Disney has in entertainment. With that being said, it should surprise nobody that Disney was once again the top box office earner in Hollywood for the year of 2017.
A glance down Disney’s lineup of 2017 releases would make most other studios salivate in jealousy. Leading the charge was the critically and commercially revered ‘Beauty and the Beast’ but ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2’ were right behind. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was released in mid-March and it locked down $504 million during its domestic run. ‘The Last Jedi’ is already almost to the $475 million mark after just two weeks in theaters. Putting it all together, including releases like ‘Cars 3’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 3’, Disney was able to earn an eye-popping $2.27 billion at the domestic box office.
Disney’s success in 2017 is just a continuation of their work in 2016. Disney was responsible for more than half of 2016’s cumulative box office gross. In 2017 that divide was only widened thanks to massive success and huge anticipation for the ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel expansion films. Disney was backed up by Warner Bros who found success with ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘IT’ though they failed behind their flagship vehicle, ‘Justice League’.
All of this talk of Box Office numbers only sets the stage for Disney’s latest acquisition by way of Fox. Disney put $52.4 billion on the table in order to purchase Twenty FIrst Century Fox despite reportedly being outbid by Comcast. Disney now has a slew of new properties that figure to be immediately introduced to their lineup. Among those properties is the coveted ‘X-Men’ franchise which will potentially be seeing a full reboot. Disney also has access to previously untouchable Marvel characters including Deadpool and that means we could be seeing a dramatically different Marvel Universe in Phase 4.
