It Will Be A Record-Breaking Year For The Movies In 2018
It looks like 2018 will be the best year in the domestic box office ever. Mega-blockbusters like Avengers: Infinity War, Black Panther, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom have contributed to the stellar numbers being reported for the year.
Cinemablend is reporting that 2018 will beat the previous record-holding year of 2016, which boasts a domestic gross of $11.377 billion. Those numbers were largely contributed to by Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($532.1 million), Finding Dory ($486.2 million), Captain America: Civil War ($408 million), The Secret Life of Pets ($368.3 million), and The Jungle Book ($364 million.)
The 2018 box office is currently sitting at $11.127 billion with two more weekends to go. This means the box office will only need to make a little over $250 million in the next few weeks to become the highest-earning year of all time. According to Cinemablend, the next few weeks could bring in well over $800 million. While that might seem like a hefty total, it’s really not when it comes to December numbers.
A mix of blockbusters and sleeper hits drove the 2018 domestic box office to new heights, despite some big flops https://t.co/v1cjz0JyuX pic.twitter.com/udPXSPJTOf
— Variety (@Variety) December 13, 2018
The $800 million projection comes from 2014 December box office numbers. This was the last year without a Star Wars movie release in the month, just as with 2018. From December 12-31 in 2014, the domestic box office brought in $832 million. This was thanks to late releases from movies like American Sniper, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.
Next weekend has three huge debuts coming from Aquaman, Mary Poppins Returns, and Bumblebee. Box Office Pro is tracking projections for Aquaman‘s opening weekend at $69 million, $36 million for Mary Poppins and $21 million for Bumblebee. That would be a cool $126 million (just half of what 2018 needs to make it to number one) added to the yearly total with eight more days to go in the year.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrVS3p9AB5t/
Smaller totals will help 2018 reach its record-breaking goal as well. Numbers will continue to roll in from newcomers like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which had an incredible opening weekend itself. The Grinch is also pulling in double-digit numbers every weekend since its release in November, with fellow animated feature Ralph Breaks the Internet continually earning over $9 million each weekend.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BrFtI1tFvAO/
Whether 2018 can break the $12 billion barrier remains to be seen, but all signs are pointing to a record-breaking year all thanks to moviegoers (and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.) The record might not last for long as 2019 is going to see some of the highest-earning movies of all time with premiers from Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars: Episode IX, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Toy Story 4, Frozen 2, The Lion King, Aladdin, and The Secret Life of Pets 2. That combination of movies will surely make for the highest earning year of all time.
