'Captain America: Civil War' Won 2016 in the Box Office

Despite a few surprise successes from Deadpool and the members of DC’s Suicide Squad, Captain America: Civil War dominated the superhero (and non-superhero) competition with an astounding $1.15 billion at the box office. Or was it actually Disney that won?

Captain America: Civil War narrowly beat Finding Dory for the crown of top-grossing movie of the year. However, thanks to other Disney films like Zootopia, The Jungle Book, Moana, Doctor Strange, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Disney controlled 26.4 percent of the domestic market, and breaking the $3 billion barrier with a cumulative $3.001 billion at the North American box-office.

Marvel Studio’s highly-anticipated sequel divided the Avengers between Team Captain America and Team Iron Man over a U.N. order which would force the Avengers into becoming an officially sanctioned, government military unit. The film also introduced Black Panther and Spider-Man, who have standalone films that will flesh out the MCU even further in the coming years.

Superhero films in general dominated the top 10 list of highest-grossing films in 2016. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Doctor Strange, Deadpool, and X-Men: Apocalypse all premiered in 2016 and went on to earn successful box-office returns.

However, rather than see this as a sign of 2016 being a particularly good year for superheroes, or even Marvel, it’s really just a testament to how much sway Disney has over our collective pop-culture landscape, releasing several of the year’s most successful films that had us all talking, and wanting even more.