Amid a heated bidding war between Walt Disney and Comcast over Twenty-First Century Fox‘s assets, the summer box office has rarely been hotter.
Since the start of 2018, Hollywood has churned out successive blockbusters, closing out a record second quarter with more than $6 billion in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. That puts the industry on pace for its highest level since 2013, comScore’s Paul Dergarabedian told CNBC’s “Closing Bell” this week.
This is already a huge rebound from last year, when ticket sales fell to their lowest level in more than a decade, according to a report from Box Office Mojo.
Universal Studios’ “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” is leading the charge, pulling in more than $60 million last weekend. The latest “Jurassic Park” installment collected a worldwide cumulative audience that stands at $932.4 million, well on its way to topping $1 billion worldwide over the coming week.
Disney’s and Pixar’s “Incredibles 2” brought in an estimated $45.5 million over the weekend as it begins its third week in release. It is the second-highest grossing Pixar film of all time and third-largest animated title ever with a worldwide cumulative audience of $646.8 million so far.
Domestic summer revenue has accumulated $2 billion as of June 26, with $1.2 billion or 60 percent market share coming from Disney.
With their movies leading the top two spots, Pivotal Research senior analyst Brian Wieser told “Closing Bell” that the question of Comcast versus Disney bidding over Twenty-First Century Fox is about where the company will invest their assets, not the quality of the movies themselves.
“The bigger picture is will Disney, if they end up with Fox, end up with a sufficiently large portfolio of content,” said Wieser, “that they don’t need to then go invest in say $10 billion a year in new original content to populate these streaming services they want if they do not end up with the Fox assets.”
Dergarabedian said although Universal’s film is topping the box office, both “Jurassic World” and “Incredibles 2” are both winning, with ticket sales for both movies totaling more than $1 billion.
Still, he said the overall winner is the box office, having its most successful quarter in movie history between April and June after pulling in $3.3 billion.
“With all this streaming and all these available options for entertainment, the fact that the movie theater is booming right now shows that it’s not going anywhere,” Dergarabedian said.
Rounding out the top four movies right now are Sony’s “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” and Lions Gate Entertainment’s “Uncle Drew” which are expected to bring in about $50 million and $35 million, respectively. Warner Bros.’ “Ocean’s 8” is currently fifth in the rankings, having generated $13.8 million internationally over the weekend.
— Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, parent company of CNBC and Universal Studios. CNBC’s sister company Universal Studios competes with Disney.
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