Disney Officially Becomes 2026's First Studio To Pass Major Box Office Milestone

Five months into 2026, Disney is the first studio to pass a significant box office milestone.

Between the studio’s many brands, Disney’s 2026 theatrical movie releases so far have included Send Help, Psycho Killer, Hoppers, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, and The Devil Wears Prada 2. The early months of the year also saw late 2025 blockbuster releases such as Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash still playing in theaters as well.

As reported by Deadline, Disney is now the first studio in 2026 to pass $2 billion at the global box office. This comes after The Devil Wears Prada 2 earned $118.8 million worldwide during its second weekend in theaters, which brings the long-awaited sequel’s overall numbers to $433.2 million. The other movies that played a key role in getting Disney to $2 billion by May were Hoppers with $371.6 million, Send Help with $94 million, and Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash as strong holdovers from 2025.

This is a strong start to the year for Disney that did not rely on just one or two outlying films. On the franchise side of things, Zootopia 2 reached $1.86 billion and Avatar: Fire and Ash got up to $1.49 billion, but Send Help and Hoppers proved that original horror and original animation can still be financial hits as well. The Devil Wears Prada 2 will continue to be a major contributor too, given how well it has performed in just two weeks, and has far outpaced the first movie’s lifetime cumulative of $326.5 million.

With a number of high-profile theatrical movies still to come in 2026, Disney’s box office total will continue to rise substantially. On May 22, The Mandalorian and Grogu will be released, and it is the first Star Wars movie since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. The Mandalorian and Grogu is not expected to bring in the kinds of numbers that the Skywalker Saga films did, but is still expected to do well, especially when considering it was made on a reportedly far lower budget of $165 million.

On June 19, Toy Story 5 will premiere, and if it follows in the footsteps of Toy Story 3 or Toy Story 4, it will make more than $1 billion globally. Less than a month later on July 10, the live-action Moana comes out. Despite some criticisms of the trailer, it should have no trouble at the box office, as Moana 2 made more than $1 billion, as did Disney’s last live-action remake, Lilo & Stitch.

From Steamboat Willie to Encanto · Eight Questions
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“When you wish upon a star…”

🐭Steamboat EraBlack-and-white Mickey

👑The PrincessesSnow White onward

🦁90s RenaissanceLion King & Aladdin

💡Pixar LampToy Story onward

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On November 18, 1928, Walt Disney premiered a seven-minute black-and-white short at the Colony Theatre in New York — the first Mickey Mouse cartoon released to the public, and one of the earliest sound cartoons ever made. Whistling Mickey at the helm of a riverboat became the studio’s first iconic image. Name the short.

APlane Crazy
BSteamboat Willie
CThe Karnival Kid
DThe Gallopin’ Gaucho

✓ Correct! Steamboat Willie. Mickey actually finished production first on the silent short Plane Crazy earlier that year, but Walt and his brother Roy bet the studio’s entire future on retooling Steamboat Willie with synchronised sound — a brand-new technology that had only just appeared with The Jazz Singer (1927). The gamble worked: Steamboat Willie’s November 1928 release made Mickey an instant national icon and put Disney on the map. The short entered the public domain in January 2024, exactly 95 years after release.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Steamboat Willie. Plane Crazy was actually animated first (May 1928, silent) but didn’t find a distributor. The Gallopin’ Gaucho was the second Mickey short, also originally silent. The Karnival Kid (1929) is where Mickey first speaks. The breakthrough — the first publicly released, sound-synchronised Mickey short — is Steamboat Willie.

Walt Disney sank the studio’s entire balance sheet, plus a heavy mortgage on his home, into a project Hollywood derisively called “Disney’s Folly” — the first full-length cel-animated feature film ever made in English. It premiered December 21, 1937 at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles to a standing ovation. Name the film.

APinocchio
BBambi
CSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs
DFantasia

✓ Correct! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The 83-minute film cost $1.49 million — an enormous gamble at the height of the Depression — and grossed $8 million on its initial release, the highest-grossing sound film made up to that point. Walt won an honorary Oscar (one large statuette and seven small ones, presented by Shirley Temple). The film’s success funded the construction of Disney’s Burbank studio and effectively created the feature-animation industry.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Pinocchio (1940) is the second Disney feature. Fantasia (1940) is the third. Bambi (1942) is the fifth. Snow White was the bet-the-studio first — ridiculed in production as “Disney’s Folly” before becoming the highest-grossing sound film ever made up to 1937.

Walt Disney’s vision of a film-quality theme park opened to a chaotic, oversold “Black Sunday” debut — counterfeit tickets, a gas leak, and asphalt soft enough to swallow women’s heels. The Anaheim park was built on 160 acres of orange groves in just 12 months. In which year did Disneyland open?

A1948
B1955
C1962
D1971

✓ Correct! July 17, 1955 — press preview day, dubbed “Black Sunday” in Disney company lore. ABC broadcast a live two-hour TV special featuring Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings and Art Linkletter (collectively winging the script as things went wrong). Disneyland was built on Anaheim orange groves Walt mortgaged his home to fund. Walt Disney World opened in 1971 in Orlando, six years after Walt’s death — that’s the date many people confuse with Disneyland’s opening.

✗ Wrong. The answer is 1955 — specifically July 17. 1948 is when Walt first sketched the concept. 1962 doesn’t mark a major Disney park milestone. 1971 is when Walt Disney World opened in Florida (six years after Walt’s death) — that’s the date most often confused with Disneyland’s. The original Anaheim park opened in 1955.

The Lion King (1994) was pitched internally as “Bambi meets…” a particular Shakespeare play — and the parallels are unmissable: a young prince’s father is murdered by his uncle, who usurps the throne; the prince later returns to avenge him. Which Shakespeare tragedy provided the bones of the story?

AMacbeth
BOthello
CHamlet
DKing Lear

✓ Correct! Hamlet. The internal pitch was famously “Bambi meets Hamlet” (or, in some retellings, “Hamlet with lions”): Mufasa is the murdered king-father (Hamlet Sr.), Scar is the usurping uncle (Claudius), Simba is the exiled prince (Hamlet), and even the ghost-on-a-cliff appearance plays out beat-for-beat. The Lion King grossed $968 million worldwide and remained the highest-grossing animated film for 16 years until Toy Story 3 broke the record in 2010.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Hamlet. Macbeth is the “ambitious wife pushes husband to murder the king” story (the closer Disney parallel there is the Frollo/Esmeralda dynamic in Hunchback). Othello is the jealousy tragedy. King Lear is the divided-kingdom tragedy. The Lion King’s bones are unambiguously Hamlet’s — ghost, uncle-murderer, exiled-prince and all.

Frozen (2013) became the highest-grossing animated film at the time and won two Oscars including Best Animated Feature. Its standout song — performed by Idina Menzel as Elsa, written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez — won the Oscar for Best Original Song and dominated radio playlists for an entire year. Name the song.

ALet It Go
BDo You Want to Build a Snowman?
CFor the First Time in Forever
DLove Is an Open Door

✓ Correct! “Let It Go” — the Oscar-winning power ballad that fundamentally rewrote the film’s plot in production: Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote the song so persuasively that the directors threw out the existing script and rewrote Elsa from villain to misunderstood protagonist. The song spent over 30 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, was translated into 41 languages for international releases, and its Idina Menzel single sold 10.9 million copies. Frozen grossed $1.28 billion and held the highest-grossing-animated-film record until its own 2019 sequel.

✗ Wrong. The answer is “Let It Go.” The other three options are also Frozen songs by the same Lopez/Anderson-Lopez writing team. “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” is the early childhood-montage number. “For the First Time in Forever” is Anna’s coronation-day song. “Love Is an Open Door” is the Hans/Anna duet. The Oscar-winning monster hit is “Let It Go.”

In November 1995, Pixar — then a small Disney distribution partner founded by Ed Catmull, John Lasseter and Steve Jobs — released the world’s first fully computer-animated feature film. It became the highest-grossing film of 1995 in North America and won a Special Achievement Oscar for John Lasseter. Name the movie.

AA Bug’s Life
BToy Story
CMonsters, Inc.
DFinding Nemo

✓ Correct! Toy Story (November 22, 1995). Made for $30 million, it grossed $373 million worldwide and immediately rewrote what was possible in animation. Steve Jobs — who’d bought Pixar from Lucasfilm in 1986 for $5 million — took the company public a week after the film’s release at $22 a share, instantly making him a billionaire. Disney bought Pixar outright in 2006 for $7.4 billion in stock, making Jobs Disney’s largest individual shareholder. A Bug’s Life (1998) was the second Pixar feature; Monsters, Inc. (2001) the fourth.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Toy Story (1995). A Bug’s Life (1998), Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003) are all later Pixar features. Toy Story was the studio’s first — and the first fully computer-animated theatrical feature in cinema history. Its release a week before Steve Jobs took Pixar public effectively turned him from struggling NeXT-era founder into a billionaire.

In a roughly seven-year span, Disney made a sequence of franchise acquisitions that transformed it from an animation studio into a global IP empire. Pixar (2006, $7.4B), Lucasfilm (2012, $4.05B) and 21st Century Fox (2019, $71.3B) bracket the era. The remaining major brand — bought in 2009 for $4 billion — brought Iron Man, Spider-Man and the Avengers under Disney’s roof. Name it.

ADC Entertainment
BImage Comics
CMarvel Entertainment
DDark Horse Comics

✓ Correct! Marvel Entertainment, acquired August 2009 for $4 billion. The deal followed Marvel Studios’ first independent production (Iron Man, 2008) and gave Disney rights to over 5,000 characters — though crucially not Spider-Man (still under a Sony deal) or the X-Men/Fantastic Four (under Fox until the 2019 acquisition reunited them). Disney’s combined Marvel-Lucasfilm-Pixar-Fox portfolio is now the largest IP holding in entertainment history.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Marvel Entertainment. DC Entertainment is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (since the 1969 Kinney/National acquisition). Image Comics and Dark Horse remain independent. Disney bought Marvel in August 2009 for $4 billion, two years after Marvel Studios’ first self-financed film (Iron Man, 2008).

Disney Animation’s Moana (2016) features Hawaiian newcomer Auli’i Cravalho as the title role and Dwayne Johnson as the demigod Maui. Its musical numbers — including “How Far I’ll Go” and “You’re Welcome” — were co-written by a Pulitzer- and Tony-winning Broadway composer who’d become a household name with Hamilton the previous year. Name him.

AStephen Sondheim
BAndrew Lloyd Webber
CLin-Manuel Miranda
DAlan Menken

✓ Correct! Lin-Manuel Miranda — co-writing with Te Vaka frontman Opetaia Foa’i and composer Mark Mancina. Miranda’s Hamilton had opened on Broadway the year before (August 2015) and turned him into the rare Disney songwriter with crossover Broadway-rap credibility. Miranda has since become a Disney mainstay, returning for Encanto (2021), where his songs “Surface Pressure” and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” topped the Billboard Hot 100.

✗ Wrong. The answer is Lin-Manuel Miranda. Stephen Sondheim wrote Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and West Side Story’s lyrics — but never a Disney animated feature. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote Cats, Phantom and Evita — also never a Disney film. Alan Menken is the great Disney Renaissance composer (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) but didn’t write Moana’s songs. Moana is Miranda’s, with Foa’i and Mancina.

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The Castle Has Spoken · Final Tally
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⤴ ANOTHER WISH

Before the summer ends, Disney also has Super Troopers 3 and Ridley Scott’s The Dog Stars, and then the survival thriller Whalefall and the dark comedy Wild Horse Nine in the fall. During Thanksgiving, Disney has Hexed, which as an original movie is unlikely to reach the heights that Moana 2 and Zootopia 2 did around this time the last two years. As seen with Pixar’s Hoppers, Disney’s original animation can still do quite well at the box office, though.

Disney will then end the year with Avengers: Doomsday on December 18. If the studio hasn’t matched last year’s year-end total of $6.5 billion, the highly-anticipated Marvel Cinematic Universe may be able to push it past the milestone, and Doomsday will also be a reliable carryover to have in early 2027.

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