Disney has dominated at the box office for the better part of a decade. However, a new challenger has emerged as Universal unseated the media conglomerate at the box office in 2023.

A new challenger

Illumination, Disney, and Pixar logos with Minions from Despicable Me.

That's right — Universal was the highest-grossing studio of 2023; taking home over $4.9 billion worldwide, per Variety. Their slate included heavy-hitters like The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.3 billion), Oppenheimer ($952 million), and M3GAN ($180 million).

Universal's slate consisted of 24, compared to second-place Disney's 17. For the latter, their highest-grossing films include Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($855 million) and The Little Mermaid ($569 million).

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Their slate was filled with its fair share of disappointments. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the final film with Harrison Ford wearing the fedora, grossed just $363 million. The entire MCU had a disappointing year aside from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania kicked off the year in February. The Ant-Man series has never been one of the MCU's biggest winners, but the third film in the series made just $476 million. This was just the start of the disappointing year, as The Marvels made just $205 million during its recent theatrical run.

This is somewhat surprising as Disney has remained atop the box office charts since 2015. Universal has now established itself as a big threat to the studio.

Warner Bros came in third place. They were heavily boosted by Greta Gerwig's Barbie. That film alone made $1.4 billion worldwide, the highest-grossing film of the entire year (with The Super Mario Bros. Movie close behind with $1.3 billion).