- Box office ticket sales in the United States and Canada increased by approximately 4% in 2025, reaching $9.05 billion.
- Disney had the largest portion of that revenue, with $2.49 billion in box office earnings, representing 27.5%.
- The studio’s most notable success was driven by pre-existing popular intellectual property such as “Lilo & Stitch,””Zootopia,” the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and “Avatar.”
The Walt Disney Company reached the pinnacle of the domestic box office in 2025, fueled by 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 total, with $2.49 billion in ticket revenue, representing 27.5%, as reported by Comscore.
The top competitors included Warner Bros. Discovery, which earned $1.9 billion within the country, 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 local 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 unique and thriving sub-brand labels — like Marvel within Disney, New Line under WB, and Illumination under Universal — under their company structure, which allows these studios to lead in terms of total box office revenue and the share of the market they hold,” stated 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, featuring a live-action version of “Lilo & Stitch,” a follow-up to 2016’s “Zootopia,” a new 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 material; movies that come with built-in brand recognition, which is believed to offer them an advantage in marketing and possible box office performance,” Dergarabedian stated.
In reality, nine out of the top 10 films at the local box office came from established intellectual property. Warner Bros.’ “Sinners” was the sole original release to appear on the list.
“In 2025, several high-budget original productions performed exceptionally well… however, for those who might believe this trend is fading, 2026 is expected to surpass 2025 in terms of the quantity of prominent sequels and established intellectual properties set for release that year,” Dergarabedian stated.
That is particularly true for Disney.
The studio is planning to debut its first Star Wars movie in cinemas since 2019, titled “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” featuring the beloved characters from its “The Mandalorian” series on Disney+; “Toy Story 5” is scheduled for release in June, followed by a live-action version of “Moana” in July; finally, the highly awaited “Avengers: Doomsday” is set to come out in December.
A fresh Spider-Man movie is also set to debut in cinemas in 2026, yet under an agreement with Sony for the character to join Disney’s MCU, Sony retains most of the box office revenue while Disney benefits from merchandise sales.
The box office is also expected to 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” film.
As we consider 2026, there’s a lot of hope in the air,” stated Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and creator of Box Office Theory. “The lineup is full of high-quality franchises, some that are fan-favorite and others that are geared towards families, along with major films driven by directors… also, there will be a number of strong or unexpectedly good performances coming from horror, comedy, independent, and other genres.
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