Disney Dethroned as Highest-Grossing Distributor of 2023 Thanks to Oppenheimer and Mario

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Universal Pictures ranked as the highest-grossing studio at the box office last year, Variety reports.

This announcement is no surprise to those closely following movies, as Universal Pictures distributed several highly profitable films last year. Of the over 20 films Universal distributed last year, three notable include Christoper Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Illumination’s Super Mario Bros. movie, and Blumhouse’s sci-fi horror film M3GAN.

Variety notes that Universal-distributed films “collected $4.907 billion in worldwide ticket sales last year.”

To put that number into perspective, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, released last April, surpassed $1 billion at the global box office during its theatrical run, while Oppenheimer grossed over $954 million worldwide. Both films were the top three-grossing movies of 2023, the other being Warner Bros. live-action Barbie movie. While M3GAN did not break any box office records like those two movies, the film did rack up $168 million during its run in theatres, and a sequel is slated to release sometime in 2025.

In contrast, Disney, which is well-known in the film industry as a box office juggernaut, did not have a single movie in 2023 that hit $1 billion. Across all its films released last year, Disney accumulated $4.827 billion globally with some of the films it released last year, including Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, a live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Haunted Mansion, and The Marvels, to name a few.

Though several of those movies underperformed, Disney CEO Bob Iger mentioned last August that the performance of its recently released movies has been “disappointing.”

Nevertheless, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. proved to be one of the biggest hits for Disney last year, grossing $845 million at the box office.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.