Disney vs. Studio Ghibli

In celebration of Studio Ghibli’s catalogue being brought to a Netflix near you, here’s a look at the budget vs box office of some of Studio Ghibli’s most popular movies compared to the biggest Disney film released the corresponding year (only animations, and sequels excluded).

While few animators can dream to make the smash box-office gross of ‘Frozen’ at $1.28 billion, its huge budget meant that the movie only made 750% profit, less than a third of the percentage profit of Studio Ghibli’s ‘Spirited Away.’

In fact, the far cheaper costs of producing 2D animations mean that Disney hasn’t seen such a successful profit margin since Aladdin, which made 18 times more money at the box office than it cost to create. Its budget is the lowest shown here for Disney - but at $28 million, this is still 7 times more expensive than Studio Ghibli’s cheapest film listed here, the 1988 classic ‘My Neighbor Totoro’.

Though this film generated one of the lower box office takings listed here, at $45 million, the huge cult following of ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ in the decades since its release have generated over $277 million in home video sales and $1.14 billion in licensed merchandise!