Disney Likely to Be Top Studio of 2017

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 5:08AM EST · Published Dec 25, 8:19AM EST

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With only a week to go, it is almost certain that Walt Disney Co.’s (NYSE: DIS) studio operation will rank No.1 this years in terms of domestic box office sales, and will likely have a market share, by that measure, above 22%, which will put it ahead of the other big four studios.

Disney’s numbers are based on box office figures from its Buena Vista movie operation. Its market share for the year as of last week was 20.2% based on annual sales of $2.1 billion. The Warner Bros. division of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) was second at 19.6%, followed by Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) at 14.2%, Twenty-First st Century Fox Inc. (NASDAQ: FOXA) at 12% and Sony Corp.’s (NYSE: SNE) Columbia at 8.5%.

Disney’s advantage as the year closes is “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” It posted sales of over $220 million its first weekend. It is expected to do another $70 million this weekend. Added to the days between the two weekends, and its box office to date will surge above $300 million.

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At $300 million, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” will be the fourth largest movies based on sales this year. The movie has a small chance to break into third place by midnight on December 31. That place is held by another Disney movie, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” which has a 2017 domestic box office total of $389 million.

Disney will buy most of the assets of 21st Century Fox next year at a price of $52 billion. Taken together, the two studios owned by Disney once the deal closes could have a market share of domestic box office as high at a third of the U.S. total. In the meantime, even without Fox, Disney holds a lead which will make it the winner for 2017.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.