Diversity on screen, original ideas and serious superheroes fueled a record year at the domestic box office and made ripples in the film industry
Films like “Black Panther,” “Roma,” “A Star is Born” and “A Quiet Place” didn’t just shape the cultural conversation in 2018; they changed the industry.
From racial diversity to a historic year at the box office and to blockbusters that have found their way into the awards season buzz, the movies still mattered this year in ways that stand to have an impact on the choices Hollywood makes moving into 2019 and beyond.
Here are seven trends in the film industry that stood out in 2018:
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1. Disney dominated at the box office — and it’s only getting bigger
However you want to slice it, the Mouse House dominated this year. Disney released the top three films of the year in “Black Panther,” “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Incredibles 2,” which buoyed the Burbank-based studio to $7 billion at the worldwide box office this year, including $3 billion-plus domestically.
Disney is making so much money it could afford to take losses on misfires like “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” “A Wrinkle in Time” and “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” — and the first two even managed to crossed the $100 million mark domestically.
The big question though is how much its dominance might grow with the about-to-close $71.3 billion acquisition of key 21st Century Fox film and TV assets. That move is rattling the industry on several fronts, including how the studio will incorporate Fox’s IP into the existing Marvel Cinematic Universe, what they plan to do with the more niche Fox Searchlight team and the rollout of its Netflix-challenging streaming service, Disney+.
But with a 2019 slate that includes a live-action version of “The Lion King,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Frozen 2” and “Toy Story 4,” Disney’s dominance doesn’t show any signs of ending soon.
2. The box office exploded this year
Despite what might seem like Netflix and other streaming giants’ best efforts to keep people at home, moviegoers are still going to the theater — and in droves. The domestic box office topped $1.8 billion this year, surpassing the $11.38 billion record set in 2016.
And it reached that total on the back of a year in which not all of the highest grossing films were billion-dollar franchises. Warner Bros.’ “Crazy Rich Asians” and “A Star Is Born,” Fox’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Universal’s “Halloween” reboot finished just outside the top 10 highest earners of the year. And in October, Sony’s surprise superhero hit “Venom” pushed that month’s total to an industry record high of $821 million.
A new study this year even suggested that those who stream movies and shows regularly also are regular ticket-buyers in bricks-and-mortar theaters: 31 percent of those who went to the theaters nine times or more in a year also reported at least 15 hours of streaming per week, compared to just 15 percent of responders who streamed as much but only went to the theaters once or twice a year.
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3. Netflix continues to flex its muscles
It wasn’t long ago that critics and audiences at the Cannes Film Festival were booing when the Netflix logo ba-dum’d on the screens off the Croisette. A 2018 festival rule change banned any film that would not receive a French theatrical release from screening at the festival.
