The domestic box office officially finished just shy of $12 billion in 2018 — and Disney snapped up more cash than ever before.
Global box office revenue reached $41.7 billion in 2018, with a record $11.9 billion of that coming from the United States, per Variety. Both numbers are new records, and they're up from $39.9 billion globally and $11.1 billion in 2017. Yearly revenue overall increased 6.7 percent domestically, but more importantly, attendance also rose around four or five percent, The Hollywood Reporter notes. That number isn't settled yet, but any increase is great news after attendance had declined by 6.2 percent in 2017 and fears that streaming was killing movie theaters swept through the industry.
Disney, which released five of the year's 10 highest-grossing films domestically, had a particularly stellar year, making $3.09 billion in the United States, Entertainment Weekly reports. This is the studio's best domestic total ever, and it means that over one-fourth of the total yearly revenue in America went to the mouse, thanks in large part to Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War.
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No other studio even made more than $2 billion in 2018. Coming in second place was Universal, which took in $1.96 billion domestically thanks to films like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Dr. Seuss' The Grinch. In third place was Warner Bros, the studio behind Aquaman and A Star Is Born that made $1.93 billion. But don't expect any of these rival companies to eke out a victory in 2019: With a slate that includes massive films like Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin, Toy Story 4, The Lion King, Frozen 2, and Star Wars: Episode IX, Disney is almost certainly on the verge of shattering its own record once again.
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