Which Movies Will Be in the Top 10 for 2016?
by EG
In terms of ticket sales, 2016 probably isn't going to beat last year. In fact, Hollywood has to finish strong to avoid turning in its second-worst year out of the last five. There is one movie studio, however, that can count 2016 as an unqualified success. There's no doubt about it: this year, it was good to be Disney.
No matter what happens in the final three weeks of December, Disney is going to have five of the year's top 10 movies: Finding Dory, Captain America: Civil War, The Jungle Book, Zootopia and Doctor Strange. Two of those movies grossed more than $400 million domestically, and two of them pulled in more than $300 million. Of the five, only Doctor Strange failed to crack the $300-million ceiling.
Right now, Warner Bros. has the next-most entries in the top 10 with three: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Both of the studio's DC Comics movies took in more than $300 million.
The only other studios in the top 10 are Universal and Fox, whose The Secret Life of Pets and Deadpool sit in third and fifth places, respectively.
The top-10 landscape could change before the end of the year, though. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opens on December 16, giving it more than two weeks to move up the charts. Some forecasts have the movie earning as much as $140 million in its opening weekend, and if those predictions turn out to be true, Rogue One could fairly easily overtake both Fantastic Beasts and Doctor Strange before December 31.
If that happens, Disney will own 60 percent of the top 10, and no other studio will put more than two movies in the rankings. It will also ensure that the top 10 is made up entirely of Marvel/DC superhero movies, animated family films and Star Wars.