Hollywood's summer ends 2% down despite Disney dominance
NEW YORK — Never before has one studio so dominated summer at the movies. The Walt Disney Co. accounted for about half of all ticket sales in U.S. and Canada theaters on the season, which came to a close Sunday with the Gerard Butler action thriller “Angel Has Fallen” topping the box office for the second weekend.
Summer ticket sales finished 2% behind last year, according to data firm Comscore, a slight downturn that came despite an unprecedented display by Disney. The studio's approximate $2.2 billion in domestic summer box office is greater than that of all the major studios combined.
Summer, which for Hollywood runs from the first weekend in May to Labor Day, traditionally ends with a whimper as few new releases seek to draw audiences over the holiday weekend. That was especially true this weekend as nothing new dented the top 10. Lionsgate's “Angel Has Fallen” came on top again with an estimated $ 11.6 million.
The final numbers on Hollywood' s summer didn' t add up to the box-office bonanza that some predicted. Instead, the main storyline on the summer came to be the yawning gap between Disney and the rest of the industry. Disney finalized its $71 billion acquisi - tion of 20th Century Fox in March, but it was the studio' s own offerings that propelled its market dominance.
Five of Disney's films crossed $1 billion this summer, including the season's biggest hit, “The Lion King.” It currently ranks seventh all-time globally with $1.56 billion in ticket sales. “Avengers: Endgame” ( $ 2.796 bil - lion) opened in late April,
just before the summer began. “Toy Story 4” and “Aladdin” both easily cleared $1 billion. The only non-Disney film in
the summer's top four was Sony's “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” and t hat film was produced by Disney's Marvel Studios.