Disney has made $8 billion at the box office this year, but its ambitions are costing it a fortune

Disney is having a record run at the box office this year, surpassing $8 billion in global ticket sales thanks to an astounding run of blockbuster releases across its Marvel and core Disney brands. That said, the company is gearing up to expand that success well beyond the theater, and with that comes big spending. In its fiscal third quarter earning results for 2019, the company posted revenue of $20.25 billion, coming in under Wall Street estimates of $21 billion.

“I’d like to congratulate The Walt Disney Studios for reaching $8 billion at the global box office so far this year — a new industry record — thanks to the stellar performance of our Marvel, Pixar and Disney films,” CEO Bob Iger said in the company’s earnings report release this afternoon. “The incredible popularity of Disney’s brands and franchises positions us well as we launch Disney+, and the addition of original and library content from Fox will only further strengthen our direct-to-consumer offerings.”

The missed targets came from higher operating costs associated with the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, full ownership of Hulu, and the investment in its upcoming streaming service Disney+, according to the report. Despite that, Iger told investors on a call that “we remain confident in our ability to maximize our strategy” following the acquisition. Most of Disney’s divisions saw an increase in sales, including its media networks (like cable and broadcast television) and, of course, studio entertainment. This most recent quarter alone saw the studio entertainment division’s revenue increase 33 percent to $3.8 billion.

Disney’s momentum at the box office has been unprecedented in 2019. Captain Marvel marked the company’s first big release of 2019, and soared to more than $1 billion worldwide upon its release. Since then, Disney has seen two more movies cross the $1 billion threshold — Avengers: Endgame, which is now the top-grossing movie of all time with $2.8 billion dollars, and Aladdin, which grossed more than $1 billion since its late May release.

Although it’s clear that Disney basically owns the theatrical year, especially with the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, this year isn’t something the entertainment behemoth will be capable of duplicating come 2020. Next year will be a bit of a pause for Disney, according to analysts who told CNBC that, without a major holiday movie and a much smaller slate of obvious blockbusters, Disney won’t post 2019 numbers again. Disney may find that momentum again in 2021, when Avatar 2 is scheduled to come out.

The company’s focus heading into next year isn’t necessarily beating its current theatrical milestone, though. It’s Disney+, which launches on November 12th.

Disney+ is one of the company’s biggest undertakings in recent years, with the company spending billions of dollars on acquiring majority stakes in streaming providers like BAMTech, which provided the technical backbone of HBO Now and the WWE Network, in order to ensure the product is up to snuff.

Disney is also about to enter an extremely oversaturated market. Netflix is still the leading company in direct-to-consumer streaming, but there are new entries coming from Apple, NBC Universal, WarnerMedia (HBO Max), and Amazon Prime Video. Disney, which also now has full control of Hulu, is looking to compete by offering its exclusive library of films and TV shows. It’s also pricing its offering as one of the cheapest options yet, at $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year.

The goal is to try to salvage cord-cutting customers by getting them to sign up for Disney+ on the promise of an expansive backlog and exclusive new shows and films. The company is planning to later bundle ESPN+ and Hulu with Disney+, although there are few details about what that bundle will look like. Iger previously told investors that he thinks Disney+ can attract 12 million subscribers by the end of 2020, which is approximately 20 percent of Netflix’s current US subscriber base.

Disney may be readying itself for a leap into digital, but that doesn’t mean its impressive theatrical run is over. Disney has at least two more major releases this year — Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the final installment in the current Star Wars trilogy. Both films are expected to do astronomical numbers at the box office, and both could cross the $1 billion line with ease. If they do, Disney could break another record: the first studio to cross $10 billion at the box office in a single year.