Disney is on track to miss out on a top-three spot at the international box office for the first time since 2009.
The Mouse House also looks set to not have a top-three ranking for the year in the U.S., which has not happened since 2011, according to Box Office Mojo.
Currently, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is sitting at fourth place both globally and at the domestic box office behind this year's hits, Barbie, The Super Maris Bros. Movie and Oppenheimer, while Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse has the third spot in the U.S.
Disney has only two more theatrical releases this year, The Marvels and animated film, Wish.
Starring Oscar winner, Brie Larson, The Marvels is a follow-up to 2019's Captain Marvel, which made $1.13 billion worldwide, which would equal around $1.35 billion in 2023. Given that the recently released Barbie has grossed more than $1.34 billion, The Super Maris Bros. Movie has made $1.36 billion and Oppenheimer has already made $853 million worldwide, the Marvel movie has a tough job ahead to make it into the top three.
Newsweek has contacted Disney for comment.
Disney's poor fortunes at the box office might have little to do with its content and more to do with its competition and their associate marketing campaigns, according to Hannah Yelin, network lead for the Creative Industries Research and Innovation Network at Oxford Brookes University in the U.K.
"In terms of both hype and commercial performance, this was Barbie's year. Super Mario Bros was a close second and, like Barbie, was a family movie with a nostalgia component for the parents," she told Newsweek, and added: "Really, I think it's Oppenheimer which 'stole' a slot one might have expected to see one of the big Disney titles, and that was largely because of 'Barbenheimer.'"
"Barbenheimer" was the cultural phenomenon that saw film fans hype up Barbie and Oppenheimer because the two were released on the same weekend, but were complete opposites storywise. One is about the popular children's toy and the other tells the story of the man who designed the bombs which were eventually dropped on Japan during World War II. Instead of pitching the films as rivals, a savvy marketing campaign encouraged viewers to watch both films on the opening weekend.
"Were it not for this, we might have seen Disney's Guardians of the Galaxy in third place. I think this is less about the decline of a major studio, blockbuster fatigue, or streaming, than it is about the fact that Barbie was this year's rising tide," Yelin explained.
Disney failed to achieve a top-three ranking in 2020, which was likely a result of its controversial decision to air films originally planned for theatrical release on its streaming service, Disney+.
The company released the Marvel film, Black Widow, on its Disney+ Premier Access for a $30 streaming service fee at the same time it released the movie at cinemas.
This led to the film's star Scarlett Johansson suing Disney, blaming the decision to put Black Widow on Disney+ at the same time as its theatrical release for poor ticket sales. Her earnings for working on the film were tied to the movie's box office performance and she claimed to have lost millions in potential earnings.
After a series of fiery public statements, Disney eventually settled with Johansson and she revealed she will continuing to work with the company.
The latest global box office figures come off the back of a disappointing year for Disney, which has experienced an unprecedented number of flops, including Harrison Ford's last outing as the intrepid archaeologist, Indiana Jones, in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It has earned $381 million at the international box office but the film's budget was an eye-watering $295 million.
Other titles that have underperformed are Lightyear, The Little Mermaid, Strange World and Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Pixar animated studios also suffered its worst opening in 28 years with Elemental, which made just under $30 million on its opening weekend in the U.S.
"The studio has had a tremendous run over the past decade, perhaps the greatest run that any studio has ever had, with multiple billion dollar hits… that said, the performance of some of our recent films has definitely been disappointing and we don't take that lightly," said Disney CEO Bob Iger during the company's 2023 third-quarter financial results call in August.
Update 09/06/23, 6:15 a.m. ET: This story was update to include comment from Yelin.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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