The 6 winners and losers at the 2019 box office

With duds "UglyDolls," "21 Bridges," "Poms," and "Playmobil: The Movie," STX's offering this year did not find much audience interest.

The mini-major that prides itself on being talent friendly and making movies that the big studios are no longer interested in found hits like "The Upside" (over $125 million worldwide), and "Hustlers" ($156 million, plus award season buzz for star Jennifer Lopez), but the titles that didn't work were major busts.

The $45 million-budgeted "UglyDolls" — starring the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Pitbull, and Blake Shelton — only brought in $32.4 million worldwide. The Diane Keaton comedy "Poms" only brought in $16.4 million worldwide. Chadwick Boseman's first movie since "Black Panther," "21 Bridges," suffered multiple release date changes and then only had a $38 million worldwide take.

But "Playmobil" was the hardest pill the swallow for STX. The movie had one of the worst openings of all time, taking in $668,000 on 2,337 screens. To date, the movie has only brought in $1 million domestically ($12.6 million international).

In some of these cases, like "Playmobil," STX didn't have any equity in the project. But the company logo is still at the start of the movie, and that's not good when you're in a business where perception is key.

It was an up-and-down year for Warner Bros. (see next slide), but one of its wins was historic. I don't think even the most optimistic executive would dream of a gritty movie like "Joker" doing the business it did at the box office. It's a testament to how the studio released the movie and an example of just how hungry audiences are for unique ways to dish out superhero IP.

Made on a $55 million budget, Todd Phillips' origin story of the Clown Prince of Crime made over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, the first R-rated movie to ever hit that mark. The movie also has the record for biggest October opening ever at the domestic box office ($96.2 million).

But in a twist that's so cruel you would think the Joker himself was behind it, Warner Bros. also had a big bust this year with one of its titles. The release of "The Goldfinch" was the worst by any of the big studios for a movie opening on at least 2,500 screens. The movie had a $2.679 million debut on 2,542 screens. That's a pre-screen average of only $1,053.

The movie's lifetime worldwide box office is $9.932 million.

Now, the above winners are clear evidence why the studios are focused so much on sequels and superhero movies. But, thankfully, original movies found success in 2019, too.

Lionsgate's "Midway" and Disney/Fox's "Ford v Ferrari" both won the domestic box office their opening weekends. And "Ferrari" earned over $100 million at the domestic box office. Specialty titles like Focus Features' "Downton Abbey" ($189.7 million worldwide), and Neon's "Parasite" ($122.6 million worldwide) also found major coin. And one of Sony's biggest earners this year was Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood," which is also one of the director's biggest box office hits ever, taking in over $372 million worldwide.

But the big winner on the original releases was Universal, which had three titles that hit number one at the domestic box office: "Abominable" ($20.6 million), "Good Boys" ($21.4 million), and "Us" ($71.1 million).

2019 will probably be the last time you'll read about Amazon consistently being in the box-office game. It seems its new plan going forward is to focus more on getting titles to its Prime customers quickly, meaning limiting its theatrical runs to only a few weeks and not reporting box-office numbers.

That's what the company began to do with its end-of-the-year titles like "The Report" and "The Aeronauts." This change came after its big Sundance purchase, "Late Night," had a dismal theatrical run, only bringing in $22.3 million worldwide (to compare, its previous big Sundance acquisition, "The Big Sick," took in over $56.4 million worldwide).

Folks at Amazon will tell you that box office is not the only way they measure a movie's performance. And if that sounds familiar, it's because that's exactly what Netflix has been saying for years. It's becoming clear that with the streaming field getting more crowded, theatrical is being used by these services more as a marketing tool than a way to get revenue.

2020 will be an interesting year at the box office if the studios (which are also launching streaming services through the conglomerates that own them) start to give hints that they want to inch toward that same thinking with some releases.