2023 wasn’t the best year at the box office for Disney.

Disney released over a dozen movies in 2023. Among those movies, you’ll find Elemental, Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Little Mermaid. Many people around the world watched and enjoyed the movies Disney released last year, but was it enough to become the highest-grossing movie studio in 2023? Let’s take a look at the box office numbers to find out!

In an article by Variety, they break down the box office numbers to show us how Disney compared to the other major movie production studios. Let’s just say it wasn’t Disney’s best year.

In 2023, Disney’s 17 new movies made $4.827 billion at the box office worldwide. To most people, this probably sounds like it was an amazing year for them — however, that isn’t the case. One of Disney’s biggest competitors, Universal Pictures, beat them at the box office for the first time in years. 

Universal earned a total of $4.907 billion at the box office in 2023, which puts them at a clear lead over Disney. Having released movies like Mario, M3GAN, and Oppenheimer — it is easy to see how Universal slid past Disney when it came to box office sales.

This marks the first time since 2015 that Disney has not been the box office leader. In a note released to the press and shared by Variety, Disney claimed that they took second to Universal because they released seven fewer movies than their competitor this year. However, it is also important to note that this is the first year since 2014 (except for 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic) that Disney hasn’t had a single film cross the $1 billion threshold. 

To finish out our leaders in box office numbers in 2023, we have Warner Bros. following Disney in third place, which made $3.84 billion globally. In fourth place, we have Sony — who made $2.094 billion at the box office.

While Disney coming in second place in box office numbers isn’t something we see every year, we’ll be interested to see if the trend continues in 2024.

In 2023, Disney did not have a single movie title in the top three this year — but they had seven movies in the top ten.  They had four of the highest-grossing global releases and three of the biggest domestic releases.

The top 3 movies at the box office in 2023 were Warner Bros. Barbie, which grossed $1.4 billion. This was followed by Universal’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, making $1.3 billion, and Oppenheimer, which came in at $950 million.

While Disney didn’t come in first place this year when it came to box office numbers, they released a lot of fan-favorite movies. Elemental ended up being one of the highest-streamed movies on Disney+!

We’re keeping our eyes out for anything and everything Disney. Keep checking in with us to see what we find next!

The 32(!!) Remakes, Reboots, and Sequel Movies in the Works at Disney Right Now

What was your favorite film released in 2023? Let us know in the comments below!

The post NEWS: Universal BEAT Disney at the Box Office in 2023 first appeared on the disney food blog.