Disney is having a very good year. That's probably stating the obvious, when we consider the Frozen overflow into 2014 and the success of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but the actual numbers for both films have contributed greatly to a massive international box office haul for the studio, which has led to Disney crossing the $1 billion mark at the international box office sooner than ever.
Variety posted Disney's latest achievement, noting that the $385.1 million (so far) earned by Captain America: The Winter Soldier overseas has led to Disney surpassing the billion dollar mark at the box office so soon in the year. And Frozen has certainly played a factor as well. The Disney Animation film has dominated at the box office since it arrived in theaters late last year, snowballing in popularity and dollars as it continued to release around the globe. Variety notes that the musical has grossed $729.3 million internationally to date, surpassing Ice Age: Continental Drift, which held the top spot with $715 million since 2012. If there's a snowy trend in animated films in the future, we'll know why!
It hasn't been all hits for Disney at the box office this year. Muppets Most Wanted didn't exactly blow up. At present, the film's total gross (including the international box office) is $63 million. Just for comparison's sake, after about a month in theaters, Frozen's total gross was over $219 million. To date, Frozen's total box office gross (domestic and foreign included) is about $1.13 billion.
Meanwhile, Captain America: The Winter Soldier's foreign box office has actually surpassed its domestic, which isn't surprising when we consider that the film began rolling out overseas in late March, ahead of the April debut Stateside. So it had a substantial head start there. Either way, it's good news for Disney and there may be plenty more where that came from. For Marvel, that could include Guardians of the Galaxy, which hits theaters stateside (and some overseas markets) this August. Though this adaptation is new territory for the Marvel cinematic universe and not directly connected to the Avengers superheroes, buzz has been strong for Guardians so far, particularly after the first trailer released, so we'll have to wait and see whether or not that buzz translates to dollars.
Coming up, Disney has Maleficent, which is already generating a lot of interest and will hopefully live up to our hopes and expectations as a great villain-focused live-action film. Maleficent arrives in theaters stateside and internationally late next month. And then there's Million Dollar Arm, which stars Jon Hamm as a man who heads to India to produce a reality show competition to find the next major league baseball pitcher. That one releases May 16. Then, later in the year, Disney has Into the Woods set to arrive in theaters.
On the animated side, Disney has Big Hero 6 set to debut November 7. We haven't seen much from this one yet, beyond a few pictures, but we know it's an "action comedy adventure" about a brilliant robotics prodigy living in a fast-paced, high-tech city, which falls in jeopardy from some kind of criminal plot. The adventure and comedy element -- and the fact that it's not a musical -- has me thinking this one might fall closer to Wreck-It Ralph, at least in terms of the tone, though we won't really know until we see the trailer. While Wreck-It Ralph's total gross wasn't half of what Frozen did, it did earn $471 million at the box office (foreign and domestic combined). So we'll have to wait and see where Big Hero 6 falls among Disney's recent animated films, and whether or not Disney's box office momentum will continue to pick up as the year continues.
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