Disney dominated the box office in 2025. Can it retain the crown in 2026?

Blue aliens, a family of superheroes, and a city of talking animals are all enhanced Walt Disney Company To the top of the domestic box office in 2025.

Full-year ticket sales in the United States and Canada rose about 4% since 2024 to $9.05 billion. Disney accounted for the lion’s share of that tally with $2.49 billion in ticket sales, or 27.5%, according to data from Comscore.

He was the closest competitor Warner Bros. Discoverywhich reached $1.9 billion domestically, or 21%, and worldwideWhich received $1.7 billion, at a rate of 19.7%. Together these three studios accounted for approximately 70% of the domestic box office market share.

No other studio has surpassed $1 billion in domestic ticket sales or accounted for more than 7% of total box office revenue.

“[Warner Bros., Disney and Universal] “These studios have the advantage of having at least two distinct, successful sub-brands — such as Marvel under Disney, New Line under WB and Illumination under Universal — under the corporate umbrella that enables these studios to dominate at least in terms of gross box office and the percentage of the market they control,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of market trends at Comscore.

Disney’s outstanding performance came on the back of an already popular intellectual property. Four of its films were part of the year’s top 10 highest-grossing domestic releases, including the “Lilo & Stitch” remake, a sequel to 2016’s “Zootopia,” another Marvel Cinematic Universe entrant with “Fantastic Four: First Steps” and a third “Avatar” film.

“Most years at the box office are dominated by well-known intellectual properties and unoriginal content; films with significant brand name recognition which in theory gives those films a leg up in terms of marketing and potential success at the box office,” Dergarabedian said.

In fact, nine of the ten biggest films at the domestic box office were existing intellectual properties. Warner Bros. “Sinners” was the only original title to appear on the list.

“In 2025, there were some big-budget originals that did incredibly well…but lest anyone think this trend will go away, 2026 is looking to surpass 2025 in terms of the number of high-profile sequels and well-known intellectual properties on the slate for the year,” Dergarabedian said.

This is especially true of Disney.

The studio is set to release its first Star Wars film in theaters since 2019, titled “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” named after the popular characters from “The Mandalorian” series on Disney+; “Toy Story 5” will hit theaters in June, followed by the live-action “Moana” movie in July. Then the highly anticipated “Avengers: Doomsday” arrives in December.

A new Spider-Man movie will also hit theaters in 2026, but as part of a deal with Sony to acquire the character as part of Disney’s MCU, Sony keeps most of the box office profits while Disney gets the merchandise sales.

The box office will also get a boost from Warner Bros. “Supergirl,” “Dune: Part Three,” Universal’s “Minions 3,” Lionsgate’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” “The Odyssey,” and “Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping,” and Sony’s third “Jumanji” film.

“As we look to 2026, there is a lot of optimism,” said Sean Robbins, director of analytics at the company. Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory “The slate is full of top-tier franchises, some fan-oriented and others family-oriented, along with filmmaker-driven tentpoles… plus the inevitable array of strong or potentially surprising performers from horror, comedy, indie, and other genres.”

Disclosure: Versant is the parent company of CNBC and Fandango.