Laura Carollo
Research expert covering cinema and film
Universal Pictures - statistics & facts
2023 was the year Universal Pictures was crowned king of the box office. For the second year running, the studio ranked first in terms of market share in the domestic market. In a global context, it narrowly dethroned Disney that same year, thus becoming the international box office leader for the first time since 2015. Moreover, Universal productions received acclaim from critics, resulting in the studio being awarded a total of seven Academy Awards at the 2024’s edition of the ceremony, the highest among all movie studios that year. Can Universal maintain its top position in 2024?
If 2023 was an exceptional year for the studio, 2024 has already brought its share of successes. Released in July 2024, “Despicable Me 4” is already shaping up to become one of the year's biggest movies, while the action film "Twisters" stormed the summer season by widely outperforming box office projections.
A swift recovery
Universal Pictures is an American film studio owned by NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of the telecommunications conglomerate Comcast since 2011. While NBCUniversal’s activities span several media such as television production, music, or even theme parks, Pictures focuses on producing and releasing movies in theaters. In 2023, Universal's box office revenues soared, just shy of the two-billion-dollar mark on the domestic market. The subdued return to normal currently experienced by the film industry does not seem to be affecting Universal, which seems to be recovering more quickly than its competitors. Its broad movie slate is also playing in its favor, with 23 movies released in 2023, the highest among all studios.Critical and commercial success
The studio’s extraordinary year was boosted by the triumph of theatrical releases such as “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”, or Nolan’s “Oppenheimer”, which both figured among the five highest grossing movies of the year. On top of being a crowd-pleaser, “Oppenheimer” was also well-received by critics, so much so that it received seven Academy Awards in total, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Cillian Murphy. Universal is home to very lucrative IPs, such as the Fast and Furious franchise, whose latest installment came out in May 2023. Additionally, the studio met success distributing productions from independent production company Blumhouse Productions, of which it is a shareholder. Blumhouse hits “Five Nights at Freddy’s” and “M3GAN” stood among the most popular horror movies of 2023, ranking first and third respectively.A new animation giant
In recent years, Universal has established itself as an alternative to Disney in the animated film market, notably through its Illumination and DreamWorks divisions. The animated movies released by Universal grossed a revenue of 1.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, exactly one billion dollars more than Disney that same year. While DreamWorks is a household name thanks to franchises such as Shrek and Madagascar, the animation studio Illumination is currently under the spotlight. Animated by Illumination Studios Paris in collaboration with Nintendo, the aforementioned “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” quickly became one of Universal’s biggest commercial successes.If 2023 was an exceptional year for the studio, 2024 has already brought its share of successes. Released in July 2024, “Despicable Me 4” is already shaping up to become one of the year's biggest movies, while the action film "Twisters" stormed the summer season by widely outperforming box office projections.
