Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Friday 3 January 2020
In 2019, the box office belonged to Disney

By JAKE COYLE will all be intellectual prop-
Associated Press erty-backed movies. That,
NEW YORK (AP) — Every in itself, isn't new. It's the
movie year offers up a pa- third year in a row that the
rade of hits and flops. But in year's 10 biggest ticket-sell-
2019, no winner was in the ers have all been sequels,
same galaxy as the Walt remakes and superhero
Disney Co. And the biggest films.
loser might have been any- But in today's IP-driven
one less thrilled about the movie world, one studio is
box-office domination of in a league of its own. In
franchise films. 2019, Disney dominated
When the year closes out American moviegoing
Tuesday, the top 10 films in more than any studio ever
U.S. and Canada theaters has before — roughly 38%

This image released by Lucasfilm shows droids BB-8, left, and D-O in a scene from "Star Wars: The
Rise of Skywalker."
Associated Press

of all domestic moviego- "There's plenty of capacity Max. While some may see
ing. to bring people to the mov- a downturn in ticket sales
The year's top five films ie screen," says Cathleen as indicative of stream-
were all Disney movies, and Taff, distribution chief for ing's impact, John Fithian,
it played a hand in the sixth. Disney. "What I think we're the president and chief ex-
Disney's Marvel Studios pro- doing is competing for their ecutive of the National As-
duced the Sony Pictures time. If it's not great, they sociation of Theater Own-
release "Spider-Man: Far do have other options. But ers, believes streaming is
From Home." when it is great, people disruptive to broadcast TV,
Disney banked about $13 show up. And we've seen cable and home markets
billion in worldwide box that this year with seven $1 like DVDs, but not to movie
office in 2019, including a billion movies." theaters.
record number of $1 bil- Disney's considerable role in "This may sound counter-in-
lion releases. Once "Star today's moviegoing hasn't tuitive, but with the launch
Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" been without critics. They of Disney-Plus, HBO Max
($724.8 million through Sun- have lamented its mega- and Peacock, we're more
day) inevitably reaches blockbusters as products, confident of the symbiotic
that milestone, it will mark not cinema. Before Mar- relationship of streaming
the studio's seventh such tin Scorsese's criticisms of and theatrical than we
$1 billion movie in 2019. Disney's Marvel movies were before," says Fithian.
The others were: "Aveng- sparked headlines, he la- "The people who stream
ers: Endgame" (the highest mented the monopolizing also go to the movies a lot."
grossing release ever, not of the multiplex, disturbed Disney, Universal and War-
accounting for inflation, by the sight of "Avengers: ner Bros. also remain devot-
with $2.8 billion), "The Lion Endgame" playing on 11 of ed to the traditional the-
King," "Captain Marvel," a theater's 12 screens. atrical window. Netflix will
"Aladdin," "Toy Story 4" and If the big-screen experi- soon be competing with
"Frozen II." ence is narrowing, the studios that can offer both
Disney's unprecedented small screen is expanding. a robust theatrical release
market share includes films Streaming services pro- and a streaming life — al-
from 20th Century Fox, the liferated in 2019 with the beit not one with the same
84-year-old studio that Dis- launch of Apple TV Plus (al- number of viewers at home
ney gobbled up in March though it pushed back its that Netflix can promise.
in a $71.3 billion acquisition. first big movie release ) and Those services have cer-
Despite Disney's consid- Disney Plus. Amazon also tainly added pressure to
erable firepower, over- reshaped its release strat- the theatrical release,
all ticket sales in U.S. and egy, shortening the theatri- and quite a few in 2019
Canada theaters were cal window for some of its weren't up to the chal-
down 4.4% from the year movies to just two weeks. lenge. The year's most glar-
before through Sunday, Netflix rolled out its most ing bombs included bold
according to data firm ambitious release slate, in- bids at technological in-
Comscore. The upper ech- cluding a host of awards novation ( "Gemini Man"
elons of the box office may contenders, led by Scors- ), mishandled franchise
be stratospheric, but the ese's "The Irishman" and finales ("Dark Phoenix"), re-
lower realms — where crit- Noah Baumbach's "Mar- makes that failed to con-
ics' scores are rotten and riage Story," that played in nect ("Charlie's Angels"),
word of mouth is faster only limited theaters. The prestige dramas doomed
than opening weekend — so-called streaming wars by controversy ( "Richard
are dismal. The movies are will only grow in 2020 when Jewell" ), toy movies that
increasingly a zero-sum NBCUniversal launches didn't click ("Playmobil: The
game. You're either "The its service, Peacock, and Movie") and, you know,
Lion King" or you're "Cats." WarnerMedia debuts HBO "Cats."q