2018 Worldwide Box Office to Reach All-Time High with $41.7B

No Business Like Show Business

The year is almost over and if analyst estimates hold true, 2018 box office movie records would end up raking in $41.7 billion worldwide.

This is the highest benchmark ever since the movie industry began. Comscore (via Variety) predicts that the international grosses will reach up to a 2.7% increase from 2017. This is worth $29.8 billion. Meanwhile, domestic US grossses will hit an even bigger milestone of 7% increase from last year with $11.9 billion.

This comes at a time when many in the movie industry are wary about growth due to the proliferation of streaming services like Netflix. Some have even gone as far as try to blockade streaming service exclusive films from qualifying in awards ceremonies.

However, these numbers should dissuade some of that paranoia and show that the movie theater business is as healthy as ever. The 2018 total actually represents a 50% increase since 2008. Back then total earnings reached $27.7 billion — $9.64 billion in North America and $11.1 billion internationally.

Who are the Biggest Box Office Winners of 2018?

Four movies reach the over $1 billion club this year. This includes Avengers: Infinity War ($2.05 billion), Black Panther ($1.35 billion), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($1.3 billion), and Incredibles 2 ($1.24 billion).

Note that although Jurassic World is a Universal film, the other three are from Disney Studios. Two of which are Marvel properties and the other is a Pixar sequel.

In addition to the billion dollar films, 53 other movies also earned more than $100 million this year. The most profitable of which is Paramount’s sci-fi creature-feature A Quiet Place starring real-life wife and husband duo Emily Blunt and John Krasinski. The film only had a $17 million budget but ended up earning $340 million.

The year is of course not yet over with a few more days to go. Right now, Warner Bros’ Aquaman is topping the charts reaching over $550 million over the Holiday weekend.