When Disney acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019 in one of the biggest media takeovers of all time, the House of Mouse absorbed its film slate — and promptly had to slog through an endless series of commercial duds.
Movies like “X-Men” spinoffs “Dark Phoenix” and “New Mutants,” Brad Pitt’s astronaut drama “Ad Astra,” buddy comedy “Stuber,” Harrison Ford-led canine adventure “The Call of the Wild” and animated pigeon comedy “Spies in Disguise” were rejected by audiences and sputtered at the box office. Worse, they didn’t exactly instill confidence in the film assets that resulted from the $71.3 billion mega-merger.
“Those Fox titles that were part of the deal but weren’t made by Disney seemed like they were orphaned,” says senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “With any merger, there are going to be growing pains. And this is a slow-moving business.”
So it’s an encouraging development that former Fox titles are no longer a burden but a boon to Disney. In 2024, three of the studio’s four biggest releases — “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” and “Alien: Romulus” — are properties from the since-renamed 20th Century Studios.
“Deadpool & Wolverine,” the first MCU movie to incorporate Fox-controlled Marvel characters, became the highest-grossing R-rated movie in history with $1.14 billion and counting. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is far from the most successful entry in the primate reboot franchise with $397 million worldwide, but it’s the eighth-biggest film of the year and highest-grossing release this May. And over the weekend, “Alien: Romulus” scared up $41.5 million in its domestic box office debut and $108 million globally to date, marking the second-largest start in the long-running sci-fi horror saga. Not everything has connected: This April’s supernatural thriller “The First Omen” missed the mark, generating a paltry $53 million globally. But “The Omen” prequel carried a lean $30 million production budget, so theatrical losses weren’t catastrophic.
“The rocky transition period has finally passed and Disney is now successfully integrating 20th Century Fox assets in a way that is more organic to Walt Disney Studios,” says Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “By that, I mean they’ve capitalized on IP and event films — something Disney does very well.”
These commercial wins follow 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” the long-delayed sequel that proved naysayers wrong to the tune of $2.3 billion globally (becoming the third-biggest movie of all time) and Searchlight’s Oscar-winner “Poor Things,” a Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone collaboration that turned into the rare post-pandemic indie smash with $117 million worldwide.
“It’s impossible to put a number on it, but after ‘Avatar,’ ‘Planet of the Apes,’ and now ‘Alien,’ I would be surprised if they weren’t feeling very good about the acquisition,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research.
Gross also notes that purchases on the magnitude of a media empire like Fox can take time to pay off. “To get a handle on the film value that Disney bought from Fox,” he says, “you have to look at it over decades, not years.”
In the short term, though, 20th Century’s input is especially needed after Disney’s terrible 2023 at the box office, with misfires including but not limited to “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “The Marvels,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and the animated “Wish.” Brands under the Disney umbrella — Pixar and Marvel among them — are rebounding as well. Thanks to “Inside Out 2” (the biggest movie of the year with $1.58 billion) and a heavy assist from 20th Century titles, Disney became the first studio of 2024 to surpass $3 billion in worldwide ticket sales. The Magic Kingdom will continue to goose its theatrical earnings with Disney Animation’s “Moana 2” (Nov. 27) and “Mufasa: The Lion King” (Dec. 20) on the calendar through the year’s end.
“All these movies have been well reviewed,” says Dergarabedian in reference to Disney’s 2024 slate. “They’ve been making solid films that deliver. It’s weird to say this because Disney is such a powerhouse, but this is a big comeback for them.”
Also in 2024, Disney has three Searchlight releases: “A Real Pain,” a comedic drama led by Jesse Eisenberg (who also directed) and “Succession” favorite Kieran Culkin (Nov. 1), “Nightbitch,” a satirical comedy starring Amy Adams and directed by Marielle Heller (Dec. 6) and “A Complete Unknown,” a biographical drama with Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan (Dec. 25). Then things thin out. The only 20th Century films on schedule are Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (July 25, 2025) and “Avatar: Fire and Water” (Dec. 19, 2025) — and any other “Avatar” sequels that James Cameron brings to life. Beyond those titles with firm release dates, it’s not clear how Disney plans to keep making use of the 20th Century brand.
Moreover, most of these recent successes were part of recognizable, decades-spanning properties. Outside of the smattering of reliable properties, Disney has either whittled down Fox’s former slate or relegated much of it to streaming debuts on Hulu. There’s been much less to celebrate with original fare that’s not part of an existing franchise. David O. Russell’s 2022 star-studded period piece “Amsterdam” and Kenneth Branagh’s 2023 whodunnit “A Haunting in Venice” were painful flops. Will Disney put energy into producing the kind of non-branded IP that fielded unconventional box office triumphs like Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” racing drama “Ford v Ferrari” and Hugh Jackman-led musical “The Greatest Showman”… or will it be all “Alien,” “Avatar” and “Apes” all the time?
“They have a good handle on the franchises they inherited,” says Gross. “Original films are harder to anticipate.”
