Updated 1/1/18
Galaxies far, far away and tales as old as time are still as popular as ever. With 2017 officially behind us, Disney claimed the two top U.S. box office slots with the latest chapter of Star Wars and the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast. At No. 1, Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi grossed $533,089,228 after a $220M Dec. 15 opening, with a a worldwide cume of $1,056,389,228. Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast retelling held onto the lead until the very end of the year, closing out in second place with $504,014,165 stateside (it’s ahead in worldwide B.O. for now with $1,263,521,126), having opened in March.
The top five spots were filled out with VFX heavy hitters Wonder Woman (Warner Bros.), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (Disney/Marvel) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (Sony Pictures).
The most popular animated movie of the year was Universal/Illumination’s Despicable Me 3, which earned $264,624,300 in the U.S. and $1,033,508,147 worldwide. And yes, in case you were wondering, Illumination has plans for Despicable Me 4, which is slated for a 2024 release. But that’s way in the future, since the studio still has The Grinch set for Christmas 2018, The Secret Life of Pets 2 for 2019, Minions 2 and Sing 2 for 2020 and The Cat in the Hat for 2021.
Sony (The Emoji Movie, Smurfs: The Lost Village), Pixar (Coco, Cars 3), Warner Bros (The LEGO Batman Movie, LEGO Ninjago Movie), and DreamWorks (The Boss Baby, Captain Underpants) all placed two titles in the top 10, while Blue Sky managed to put its December release (Ferdinand) on the number 9 spot in the very final weekend of the year.
Top 10 Animated Movies of the Year
| 1. Despicable Me 3 (Universal/Illumination) | $264,624,300 |
| 2. Coco (Disney-Pixar) | $182,061,459 |
| 3. The LEGO Batman Movie (Warner Bros.) | $175,750,384 |
| 4. The Boss Baby (Fox/DreamWorks) | $175,003,033 |
| 5. Cars 3 (Disney-Pixar) | $152,901,115 |
| 6. The Emoji Movie (Sony) | $86,089,513 |
| 7. Captain Underpants (Fox/DreamWorks) | $73,921,000 |
| 8. The LEGO Ninjago Movie (Warner Bros.) | $59,281,555 |
| 9. Ferdinand (Fox/Blue Sky) | $56,760,105 |
| 10. Smurfs: The Lost Village (Sony) | $45,020,282 |
Top 10 VFX Movies of 2017
| 1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Disney) | $533,089,228 |
| 2. Beauty and the Beast (Disney) | $504,014,165 |
| 3. Wonder Woman (Warner Bros.) | $412,563,408 |
| 4. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (Disney) | $389,813,101 |
| 5. Spider-Man: Homecoming (Sony) | $334,201,140 |
| 6. It (Warner Bros.) | $327,481,748 |
| 7. Thor: Ragnarok (Disney) | $311,441,239 |
| 8. Logan (Fox) | $226,277,068 |
| 9. Justice League (Warner Bros.) | $225,897,455 |
| 10. The Fate of the Furious (Universal) | $225,764,765 |
Source: Boxofficemojo.com; 01/01/2018
