Leave it to Mario and Luigi to help dethrone the house of Mickey Mouse at the global box office. Thanks to The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Universal was the No. 1 studio in the world for 2023, stepping over Disney–which had held the top spot since 2015.
Variety reports that Universal’s 24-film slate for last year raked in $4.907 billion at the box office. The Super Mario Bros. Movie accounted for $1.3 billion of that total, making more money than Frozen and becoming the No. 3 animated film of all time. Meanwhile, Oppenheimer brought in $950 million and earned the title of highest-grossing biopic ever. The Christopher Nolan film also is the No. 2 highest-grossing R-rated movie.
Now Disney wasn’t too far behind Universal and only distributed 17 movies in 2023. The studio saw $4.827 billion in global ticket sales, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 leading the charge with $845 million. Though keep in mind that figure falls behind Mario and Oppenheimer. Plus, the rest of the MCU slate for 2023 disappointed at the box office. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania earned $476 million, but the film’s production was estimated at $200 million to $250 million. And then The Marvels had the worst MCU box office debut ever.
Warner Bros. was No. 3 in 2023 with $3.84 billion. The studio had the biggest movie of the year with Barbie, which also became Warner Bros. highest-grossing movie ever. The Margot Robbie-starring film ended up making $1.4 billion. Barbie is also GameSpot’s Movie of the Year for 2023.
Sony and Paramount fall somewhere after those three studios. Variety notes that both failed to deliver final tallies, though both reportedly raked in at least $2 billion last year. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse led the way for Sony, while Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One did the same for Paramount.
