Disney’s Wish Finally Passes A Major Box Office Milestone Worldwide

Wish, the latest Disney animated movie, has crossed a major worldwide box office threshold. Meant to function as a celebration of Disney’s centennial by offering a return to the studio’s animated roots with a simple origin story for the Disney wishing star, the film features the vocal talents of Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine. Originally released on November 22, 2023, the film had a tough Thanksgiving weekend opening, garnering $19.7 million, nearly reminiscent of last year’s Disney box office flop Strange World, which garnered just $11.9 million in its opening weekend.

Competing with Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and fellow animated picture Trolls Band Together, Wish was projected to drop even lower than Strange World in its second weekend, with the future looking bleak for the new film. However, The Numbers now reports that Wish has picked up steam, passing $100 million worldwide as of this weekend for an all time worldwide box office of $105.5 million, with $56.1 million coming from the international box office. With a production budget of $200 million, these numbers place Wish at halfway to breaking even after a slow start.

Is Wish The Latest In A Series Of Disney Animated Flops?

Strange World wasn’t the only recent Disney release to have a less than successful theatrical debut. At the time of its release in June 2022, Lightyear experienced a modest opening and then had a second weekend drop second only to Pixar’s Onward, which debuted in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. Another Disney Pixar movie whose box office was affected by the pandemic was Soul. June 2023’s Elemental also experienced a historically low domestic opening for Pixar before clawing its way to $486.7 million worldwide with an extended theatrical run.

Despite a run of disappointing theatrical releases, recent Disney movies have also enjoyed impressive streaming success since the launch of Disney+ in late 2019. While box office numbers alone indicate a difficult few years for Disney, the streaming numbers tell a different story, indicating that the media juggernaut now has other metrics for a film’s success and perhaps even other priorities, given that many recent theatrical flops have become sleeper hits on Disney+. With that in mind, it’s possible that even if Wish doesn’t pass the production budget benchmark during its run in theaters, it may achieve new milestones on streaming.

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However, the door has yet to close on Wish, and it’s possible that the recent uptick in the new movie’s worldwide box office is indicative of higher numbers to come as the animated musical continues its theatrical run, especially with a July 8th streaming release date, which gives the movie plenty of time as an exclusive theatrical experience. Disney may also elect to keep Wish in theaters longer in order to give it more time to surpass its production budget, as they did with Elemental. Whether or not Wish ends up being a theatrical hit for Disney, the recent past makes it likely that the future is bright for the animated tale once it does come out on Disney+ next year.