Congratulations to this year’s Disney / Marvel Golden Globe nominees:

• Black Panther
• Mary Poppins Returns
• Ralph Breaks The Internet
• Incredibles 2

Not only does Disney once again dominate the Golden Globes animation category but Marvel Studios has earned its first Golden Globe nomination in the best dramatic movie category for its billion-dollar-grossing hit “Black Panther.”

“Black Panther” was nominated for threeGlobes overall, including best original score by Ludwig Goransson and best song for Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “All the Stars.”

The Mouse House is getting a lot bigger.  At special meetings held simultaneously in New York this morning, Disney and 21st Century Fox shareholders overwhelmingly approved the $71.3 billion dollar merger deal first proposed last December.  The deal that will add numerous big-name entertainment properties to Disney’s ever-growing portfolio. A bunch of Marvel Comics characters are coming home.

Fox had the rights for movies starring, among others, the high-profile supergroups X-Men and the Fantastic Four, including associated supporting players and villains. Now the already star-packed Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to go supernova with the possibility of debuting many of them after next year’s “Avengers 4” (May 3) wraps up Phase 3 of the MCU.

In addition, “Avatar”, “Titanic” and TV shows such as “The Simpsons” and “This Is Us” will now be owned by Disney. That adds to an already enviable content stockpile from divisions that include Lucasfilm, Marvel Entertainment and Pixar Animation Studios. The deal also gives Disney the cable networks FX and National Geographic; a controlling stake in the streaming service Hulu, which has more than 20 million subscribers; and Star, one of India’s fastest growing media companies.

The shareholder votes brought to a close a six-month corporate showdown, waged across two continents by Disney and Comcast, for supremacy in the rapidly changing media business. Mr. Murdoch’s trove represented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gain the bulk needed as a counterattack against the tech giants that have aggressively moved into Hollywood.

The merger will see the creation of New Fox and a separation agreement that transfers to the company assets Disney won’t be involved with, namely a portfolio of 21st Century Fox’s news, sports and broadcast businesses, including the Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Sports, Fox Television Stations Group, and sports cable networks FS1, FS2, Fox Deportes and the Big Ten Network.

It’s another Disney-led weekend as Ant-Man and the Wasp claims the weekend’s #1 spot. This marks the tenth time this year a film based on a Marvel comic character has topped the weekend box office!

Disney’s success this weekend also doesn’t end with just the #1 film at the box office as Incredibles 2 became the first animated title to ever top $500 million at the domestic box office.

As we enter the second half of the year, and the 27th weekend of 2018, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has now claimed the #1 spot at the weekend box office nine times. The latest is this weekend’s release of Ant-Man and the Wasp, the 20th installment in the MCU, which debuted with an estimated $76 million over the three-day weekend, out-performing 2015’s Ant-Man by nearly $20 million.

Ant-Man and the Wasp‘s Friday gross accounted for 44.5% of its overall weekend gross, that’s the largest in MCU history, ahead of Avengers: Age of Ultron (44.1%) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (43.39%). However, before that’s considered an issue, while Ultron only delivered a 2.4x multiplier, Homecoming delivered a 2.86x multiplier, the sixth best in the franchise, and the first Ant-Man enjoyed a healthy 3.15x multiplier. Ant-Man and the Wasp received a “A-” CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences, just a notch down from the “A” for Ant-Man, and 55% of the overall audience was male while 58% of the overall audience was over the age of 25. While the gender demographics are relatively similar to the first Ant-Man, the audience for the sequel did skew a bit older, as 48% of the overall audience for the first film was age 25 or older.

Looking ahead, should Ant-Man deliver on the average 2.75x multiplier for a film in the MCU we’re looking at a domestic performance around $209 million or so while a performance on the lower end would be closer to $180 million.

Disney Pixar’s Incredibles 2 flexed its muscles and delivered a massive opening weekend debut, not only shattering the previous opening weekend record for an animated film, but finishing with one of the top ten openings of all-time for a film of any genre.

With an estimated $180 million, Disney and Pixar’s Incredibles 2 topped, by $45 million,  the previous opening weekend for an animated film set two years ago by Finding Dory with $135 million.

The film also delivered the largest opening day ever for an animated title and the second largest June opening ever behind Jurassic World. Added to that, when it comes to the largest opening weekends of all-time, Disney now owns nine of the top ten, the lone standout being the aforementioned Jurassic World at number four.

On top of that, the film’s opening weekend is the eighth largest all-time, topping the $179.1 million opening for 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, which went on to gross over $400 million at the domestic box office. Also of note, this is more than the $174.7 million opening for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, which went on to gross over $500 million domestically.

As for Incredibles 2‘s domestic future, an “A+” CinemaScore and an opening of this size seems to suggest a $500+ million domestic performance is in the offing, which would make it the highest grossing animated film of all-time should it reach that number, topping Dory‘s $486.2 million domestic run.

Internationally, Incredibles 2 brought in an estimated $51.5 million from ~26% of the international market, for a global debut totaling an estimated $231.5 million. As far as the international openings are concerned, the film delivered the largest Pixar opening weekend in several markets including Mexico ($12.3m), Australia ($7.7m) and Argentina ($3m) along with a $5.4 million opening in Russia. The film’s international rollout will be staggered, as is typically the case with Pixar titles, with openings in China, Iceland, Croatia, Thailand and India next weekend followed by releases in Brazil (Jun 28), France (Jul 4), UK (Jul 13), Korea (Jul 19), Japan (Aug 1), Spain (Aug 3), Italy (Sep 19) and Germany (Sep 27).

“Incredibles 2,” which cost Pixar’s corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, at least $300 million to make and market worldwide, played more like a broad action film than a PG-rated cartoon. About 25 percent of the audience was over the age of 35, according to Disney, which is planning more “Incredibles” installments as part of an ongoing franchise.