Every movie year offers up a parade of hits and flops. But in 2019, no winner was in the same galaxy as the Walt Disney Co. And the biggest loser might have been anyone less thrilled about the box-office domination of franchise films.

The top 10 films in U.S. and Canada theaters are franchises. That in itself isn’t new. It’s the third year in a row that the year’s 10 biggest ticket-sellers have all been sequels, remakes and superhero films.

But one studio is in a league of its own. In 2019, Disney dominated the box office more than any studio ever has, commanding roughly 38% of the audience.

The year’s top five films were all Disney movies, and it played a hand in the sixth: Disney’s Marvel Studios produced the Sony Pictures release “Spider-Man: Far From Home.”

Disney banked about $13 billion in worldwide box office in 2019, including a record number of $1 billion releases. Once “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” ($724.8 million through Sunday) inevitably reaches that milestone, it will mark the studio’s seventh $1 billion movie in 2019. The others were: “Avengers: Endgame” (the highest-grossing release ever, not accounting for inflation, with $2.8 billion), “The Lion King,” “Captain Marvel,” “Aladdin,” “Toy Story 4” and “Frozen II.”

That unprecedented market share includes films from 20th Century Fox, the 84-year-old studio that Disney gobbled up in a $71.3 billion acquisition.

But overall ticket sales in the United States and Canada were down 4.4% from the year before through Sunday, according to data firm Comscore. The upper echelons of the box office may be stratospheric, but the lower realms are dismal. The movies are increasingly a zero-sum game. You’re either “The Lion King” or you’re “Cats.”

“There’s plenty of capacity to bring people to the movie screen,” said Cathleen Taff, distribution chief for Disney. “What I think we’re doing is competing for their time. If it’s not great, they do have other options. But when it is great, people show up. And we’ve seen that this year with seven $1 billion movies.”

But some have lamented Disney’s blockbusters as products, not cinema. Before Martin Scorsese’s criticisms of Disney’s Marvel movies sparked headlines, he lamented the monopolizing of the multiplex, disturbed by the sight of “Avengers: Endgame” playing on 11 of a theater’s 12 screens.

If the big-screen experience is narrowing, the small screen is expanding. Streaming services proliferated in 2019 with Apple TV Plus (although it pushed back its first big movie release ) and Disney Plus. Amazon also reshaped its release strategy, shortening the theatrical window for some of its movies to just two weeks. Netflix had its most ambitious release slate, including a host of awards contenders, led by Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” that played in only limited theaters. The streaming wars will only grow in 2020 when NBCUniversal’s Peacock and WarnerMedia’s HBO Max will join the fray.

While some may see a downturn in ticket sales as indicative of streaming’s impact, John Fithian, CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners, believes streaming is disruptive to broadcast TV, cable and home markets like DVDs, but not to movie theaters.

“This may sound counter-intuitive, but with ... Disney-Plus, HBO Max and Peacock, we’re more confident of the symbiotic relationship of streaming and theatrical than we were before,” Fithian said. “The people who stream also go to the movies a lot.”

Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. also remain devoted to the traditional theatrical window. Netflix will soon be competing with studios that can offer both a robust theatrical release and a streaming life — albeit not one with the same number of viewers at home that Netflix can promise.

Those services have certainly added pressure to the theatrical release, and quite a few in 2019 weren’t up to the challenge. The year’s most glaring bombs included bold bids at technological innovation (“Gemini Man”), mishandled franchise finales (“Dark Phoenix”), remakes that failed to connect (“Charlie’s Angels”), prestige dramas doomed by controversy (“Richard Jewell”) and, you know, “Cats.”

But some Hollywood executives point to successes suggesting a vibrant medium. Jordan Peele’s “Us,” for Universal, was the highest grossing original movie. Others like Lionsgate’s “Knives Out,” Fox’s “Ford v Ferrari,” STX’s “Hustlers” and Sony’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” were also both critical and global hits. Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” and Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell” gave the art house a boost.

“I think it’s just like everything else in this industry since it began: We have cycles,” said Jim Orr, distribution chief for Universal. “Generally, the box office is still trending up and I think that will continue over time.”

Revenue has largely been on the rise thanks to rising ticket prices. An estimated $11.4 billion in ticket sales for 2019 is second all time, not accounting for inflation. But admissions have been gradually declining since 2005.

But the outlook for 2020 is potentially dimmer. Many expect the year’s ticket sales to drop a few percentage points again. No one forecasts a similar year from Disney, which will have no “Avengers” or “Star Wars” movie.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore, predicts a more typical year in 2020, “where the wealth will be spread quite a bit more”

“The sky is not falling, but we’re definitely going to have to change our expectations for 2020. It’s not going to be just about one studio dominating but it’s going to be about all the studios bringing some of their biggest brands.”

James Bond, Wonder Woman and the Rock are coming in 2020. But greater volatility may be on the way, too.

Jake Coyle is an Associated Press writer.