Disney’s record-breaking 2019 continued this weekend, as it became the first studio ever to gross $10 billion at the global box office in a single year.
The milestone was reached thanks to the third weekend of “Frozen II,” which added just under $125 million worldwide to push the film’s overall total to $920 million. Disney already broke the annual global box office record way back in July, as the release of its “Lion King” remake pushed it past Disney’s own $7.6 billion record that it set back in 2016.
Disney got there thanks to a string of highly anticipated titles, starting with the one-two Marvel punch of “Captain Marvel” and “Avengers: Endgame.” The two films grossed a combined $3.9 billion worldwide, with “Endgame” passing “Avatar” as the biggest box office hit ever with $2.79 billion. Since then, the studio has released three more billion-dollar hits with remakes of “Aladdin” ($1.05 billion) and “The Lion King” ($1.65 billion), as well as Pixar’s “Toy Story 4” ($1.07 billion).
What’s particularly stunning about Disney’s 2019 is that it has reached this mark without the help of “Star Wars,” which will likely provide another $500 million-plus to the studio’s total before the year is up with the release of “The Rise of Skywalker” on Dec. 20.
It also has done this without the help of the recently acquired 20th Century Fox, which had a poor 2019 until the release of awards contender “Ford v Ferrari,” which has grossed a solid $167.7 million globally so far and will likely continue to leg out through Oscar season.
When Fox’s annual totals are added, Disney’s global cume for the year balloons to just under $12 billion.