Disney Is No Longer the Top Box Office Earner Amid Franchise Fatigue and Inflated Budgets
Inflated budgets and franchise fatigue are taking a toll on Disney. After a series of flops in 2023, the year marked the first since 2015 in which Disney was not the top box office earner.
It is no secret that 2023 has been a tough year for Disney. The company was among the studios that contributed to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes by failing to pay workers adequately, leading to many of its films and TV shows being delayed and lacking adequate promotions. We’re likely to continue seeing the effects of the strikes in 2024, as the box office is predicted to lose $1 billion due to a lack of big movie releases. Not only was Disney contending with the strikes, but it also was hit hard by franchise fatigue. Interest is clearly starting to wane as the studio continues pushing out sequels and remakes instead of new, original content. Even one of its “original” films, Wish, felt like little more than a mashup of past movies.
As a result, films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Haunted Mansion, The Marvels, and The Little Mermaid either flopped or underperformed at the box office. The studio may need to reconsider its approach to movies, as 2023 saw it lose its grip on the box office for the first time in almost a decade.
Disney loses to Universal Pictures at the 2023 box office
Universal Pictures managed to overtake Hollywood giants Disney, Sony, and Warner Bros. Discovery at the 2023 box office. The studio was the top earner for the year, thus ending Disney’s streak of routinely leading the global box office. Not only did Universal release a whopping 24 films in 2023, but it was also behind three of the year’s biggest hits: The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Oppenheimer, and M3GAN. Universal ended the year with $4.9 billion in global box office earnings, while Disney came in second place with $4.8 billion.
Disney did release seven films less than Universal did in 2023, which could account for that $80 million difference. After all, for all its flops and disappointments, Disney was still a box office powerhouse. At the same time, there’s evidence the studio is a bit off its game, given that none of its films surpassed $1 billion at the box office, and it wasn’t responsible for any of the three highest grossing films of 2023: Barbie, Oppenheimer, and The Super Mario. Bros. Movie.
The problem with Disney is that even though some of its films landed in the top 10 highest grossing films of 2023, they were still flops to the studio. This is because Disney makes the most expensive films in Hollywood. With a budget of about $200 million, one of Disney’s lowest-grossing films, Wish, was still more costly to make than any of the three top-grossing films of the year. Meanwhile, Universal’s biggest box office flops—Renfield and Book Club: The Next Chapter—weren’t as painful as Disney’s losses because those films had more modest budgets (under $70 million).
It’s hard to feel sorry for Disney, given CEO Bob Iger’s ridiculous take on the strikes. However, one must remember that it’s bound to be the workers who will feel Disney’s losses the most. Iger will walk away from 2023 with around $30 million in his pocket, despite his company undergoing multiple mass layoffs throughout the year, with each round cutting employees by the thousands. This is why we can only hope that the studio controls its budgets and stops trying to overmilk franchises for box office earnings. Filmmakers like Gareth Edwards have argued that studios can find more affordable approaches to filmmaking and that films don’t need $200 or $300 million budgets.
The 2023 box office rankings reiterate that inflated budgets didn’t win, so maybe it’s time for Disney to re-evaluate its approaches before more employees pay the price for its poor financial and creative decisions.
(via Variety, featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
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