Well, that took some time.
Finally, the 2019 domestic box office –which was loaded with mega Disney IP such as the second-highest grossing domestic title of all-time Avengers: Endgame ($858.3M), along with the Burbank, CA studio owning seven of the top ten pics of the year (all in excess of $362M-plus) –has crossed $11 billion. That’s the fifth time the U.S./Canada B.O. has crossed that mark consecutively since 2015 when Star Wars: Force Awakens opened. Shockingly throughout the year, despite all the big franchises, the 2019 stateside ticket sales continued to pace behind 2018, which set a record year at the B.O. (sans Star Wars in Q4) with $11.88 billion. Through this past weekend, the current domestic B.O. counts $11.26B for the period of Jan. 1-Dec. 29, -4.4% when compared to the same frame in 2018.
Last year we crossed the $11B mark in early December taking 343 days, a record pace. This year we hit the mark in 360 days, a day sooner than 2016 crossed $11B.
Per ComScore, the domestic B.O. crossed $11B on Thursday, just prior to the weekend with all titles (led by Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with a $72M second weekend) ringing up an estimated $195.8M in the post Christmas 3-day, +4% from a year ago. Disney-Fox product accounted for 53% of this past weekend’s receipts totaling $104.1M.
Overall, Comscore is projecting $11.4B for 2019, which would be 4% behind 2018. That’s poised to be the second-highest annual domestic box office gross ever behind 2018.
And that’s nothing to complain about.