Disney’s 2025 Box Office Domination: How It Can Stay on Top in 2026

• Ticket sales at movie theaters in the United States and Canada increased by approximately 4% in 2025, reaching $9.05 billion.
• Disney had the largest portion of that total, with $2.49 billion in box office revenue, representing 27.5%.
• The studio’s most impressive performance was driven by existing popular intellectual property such as “Lilo & Stitch,” “Zootopia,” the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and “Avatar.”

The Walt Disney Company reached the top of the domestic box office in 2025, thanks to blue aliens, a family of superheroes, and a city inhabited by talking animals.

Annual ticket sales in the United States and Canada increased by approximately 4% compared to 2024, reaching $9.05 billion. Disney had the largest portion of this revenue, with $2.49 billion in ticket sales, representing 27.5%, as reported by Comscore.

The top competitors included Warner Bros. Discovery, which earned $1.9 billion domestically, or 21%, and Universal, which generated $1.7 billion, or 19.7%. These three studios combined to capture almost 70% of the domestic box office market share.

No other studio exceeded $1 billion in domestic ticket revenue or contributed more than 7% to the overall box office earnings.

“[Warner Bros., Disney and Universal] benefit from having at least two or more separate and thriving sub-brand labels — like Marvel under Disney, New Line under WB and Illumination under Universal — within their company structure, allowing these studios to maintain a strong presence in the box office and control a significant share of the market,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore.

Disney’s notable success was driven by pre-existing popular intellectual property. Four of its movies ranked among the top 10 highest-earning domestic releases of the year, including the live-action version of “Lilo & Stitch,” a follow-up to 2016’s “Zootopia,” another entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe titled “Fantastic Four: First Steps,” and a third installment in the “Avatar” series.

“Many years at the box office are led by established intellectual property and non-original content; movies that come with built-in brand recognition, which theoretically provides them with an advantage in marketing and potential box office performance,” Dergarabedian stated.

In reality, nine of the top 10 films at the domestic box office came from established intellectual property. Warner Bros.’ “Sinners” was the sole original film to appear on the list.

“In 2025, several high-budget original releases performed exceptionally well… however, don’t assume this trend will fade, as 2026 is expected to surpass 2025 in the quantity of prominent sequels and established intellectual properties set for release that year,” Dergarabedian stated.

That is particularly accurate for Disney.

The studio is planning to debut its first Star Wars movie in theaters since 2019, titled “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” featuring the beloved characters from its “The Mandalorian” series on Disney+; “Toy Story 5” is set to premiere in theaters in June, followed by a live-action version of “Moana” in July; finally, the highly awaited “Avengers: Doomsday” will be released in December.

A new Spider-Man movie is also set to debut in theaters in 2026, but as part of an agreement with Sony to include the character in Disney’s MCU, Sony retains most of the box office revenue while Disney benefits from merchandise sales.

The box office will also see an increase due to Warner Bros.’ “Supergirl” and “Dune: Part Three,” Universal’s “Minions 3,” “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” and “The Odyssey,” Lionsgate’s “Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping,” and Sony’s third “Jumanji” movie.

As we turn our attention to 2026, there’s a lot of hope and positivity,” stated Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “The lineup is filled with high-quality franchises, some that are popular with fans and others that are geared towards families, along with major films driven by directors… plus a likely group of powerful or unexpectedly strong performances coming from horror, comedy, independent, and other genres.

Disclosure: Versant is the parent company of and Fandango.