Strengthened by the worldwide release this past weekend of Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the Walt Disney Studios has crossed the $3B box office mark globally for the year so far.
This is the 14th year that Dis has achieved the milestone and surpasses last year’s full total of $2.9B.
Films that have contributed to the benchmark include Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($955M), Thor: Love and Thunder ($761M) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($381M to date). Also in the mix are Pixar’s Lightyear ($227M) and 20th Century Studios’ Death on the Nile ($138M), among others.
Since bowing this past weekend, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has accumulated $205M domestically and $176M at the international box office. At release, the Ryan Coogler-directed sequel set a new November record domestically and had the 5th highest international opening weekend for any Hollywood film of the pandemic era. Globally, it scored the 3rd highest start for any Hollywood title during the pandemic era, as well as the 2nd biggest worldwide opening of 2022 to date. There is runway ahead.
The tail end of the year looks to mint even more mouse money with the highly anticipated opening of 20th Century Studios’ Avatar: The Way of Water, as well as Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Strange World and Searchlight Pictures’ The Menu and Empire of Light.
Disney led global studio rankings in 2021, followed by Sony and Universal. In August this year, Universal became the first studio to reach the $3 billion milestone since 2019.