As the year comes to a close, it is an annual Hollywood tradition to rank the “winners” and “losers” of its film studios. Twelve months ago, Universal was riding high as the year’s top studio, based on the surprising success of Illumination and Nintendo’s THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE and Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER. It was the first time Universal had held the trophy since 2015.
Five years ago, many were viewing Disney as the inexorable box office winner, based on a series of major studio acquisitions and with profits flowing from the heyday of superhero movies. However, a number of corporate missteps and the prioritization of streaming had many wondering if the House of Mouse would ever regain the box office title.
But never say never because Disney is back on top in 2024, both in the domestic and worldwide box office. It delivered the top two movies of the year, with Pixar’s INSIDE OUT 2 and Marvel’s DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE each earning more than $1B in global box office. This was followed by Disney’s MOANA 2, which stands currently at #5 on the annual list behind Universal’s WICKED and DESPICABLE ME 4. Disney’s decision to invest some of its its popular brands paid off handsomely.
Universal had another good year, adding to their top line success with WICKED and DESPICABLE ME 4 with solid contributions from TWISTERS and THE WILD ROBOT. Warner Bros. had mixed results, with wins from DUNE: PART 2, GODZILLA X KONG: NEW EMPIRE and BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE but significant losses from FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA and JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX, each of which lost more than nine-figure amounts. Paramount was the opposite, without any major success or losses. Sony had a string of summer hits with THE GARFIELD MOVIE, BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE and IT ENDS WITH US, but burnt badly by the superhero movies MADAME WEB and KRAVEN THE HUNTER.
Beyond the traditional majors, the biggest studio losers were Lionsgate and Apple. After the two modestly successful faith-based titles in UNSUNG HERO and THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER, every other Lionsgate release crashed with the most infamous being BORDERLANDS. Apple released only two films to theatre, ARGYLLE and FLY ME TO THE MOON. Both were expensive productions that flopped at the box office, resulting in a late decision to remove their planned September release WOLFS from the theatrical calendar all together, introducing doubt about Apple’s future plans to release any of its movies theatrically.