Disney Holds Unprecedented Third of US Movie Market

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 7:30PM EST · Published Aug 13, 6:25AM EDT

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Disney Holds Unprecedented Third of US Movie Market — © YouTube

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) holds an unprecedented 35% of the market share of studios through August 5. Its success was described in Disney’s recent earnings. If Disney can hold its position, the studio will break records that have existed for years.

Disney’s primarily studio is Buena Vista, and the movies it has produced have ticket sales of $2.63 billion this year. Number two Universal has had ticket sales of $1.05 billion for a 14% share. Warner Bros.’s share is 10%, with ticket sales of $738 million.

Three films have accounted for most of Disney’s success. “Black Panther” is one of the most successful movies of all time with domestic box office sales of $700 million. “Avengers: Infinity War,” part of the blockbuster Avengers series, has posted ticket sales of $678 million. An animated movie, “Incredibles 2,” is next on the Disney list at $583 million. Incidentally, these are the three most successful movies of 2018, regardless of the studios that released them.

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In a typical year, going back to 2000, the lead studio for the year has a market share of 15% to 20%. Disney may double that in 2018, depending on the success of its major films over the next five months. Two movies are likely to help it hold the wide lead. “Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2” will be released on November 25. The original “Wreck-It Ralph” was released in 2012. It had domestic box office of $189 million and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. “Mary Poppins Returns” is a sequel to the “Mary Poppins” movie released in 1964. It may not help Disney’s numbers much for this year because it will not be released until Christmas Day.

All in all, even if Disney does not produce a string of blockbusters as it did in the first seven months of the year, it is likely to post a box office market share unmatched in nearly two decades.

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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.