The final numbers are in, and unsurprisingly, Walt Disney Pictures topped the global box-office in 2022, with the studio pulling in $4.9 billion worldwide – $2 billion domestically and $2.9 billion overseas.
It marks the seventh consecutive year that Disney has been No. 1 at the global box office – a title they’ve held since 2016. They also managed this with only three theatrical releases in China: this year “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Death on the Nile” and “Encanto”.
Disney also had four of the top eight movies of 2022, both domestically and worldwide, along with six films debuting at No. 1 in North America and an estimated 27% domestic market share. Its biggest winners are (including total gross along with domestic/overseas grosses):
“Avatar: The Way of Water” – $1.303 billion ($401m/$902m)
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” – $956 million ($411m/$544m)
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” – $817 million ($436m/$381m)
“Thor: Love and Thunder” – $761 million ($343m/$418m)
“Lightyear” – $226 million ($118m/$108m)
Other films to have contributed are Fox titles, including “Death on the Nile” ($138M), “The Menu” ($72M) and “Barbarian” ($45M). Disney beat Universal Pictures in second place with $3.9 billion worldwide ($1.65 billion domestic, $2.25 billion offshore).
Disney’s 2023 line-up includes at least four films that should perform very well – Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” along with Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” and Lucasfilm’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”.
Also on the way are Pixar’s “Elemental,” another Poirot with “Haunting in Venice,” the animated “Wish” and Taika Waititi’s “Next Goal Wins”.
