Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Profit Motive...
The Walt Disney Company released its financial quarterly numbers...
And it looks like Steve Jobs' touch on his other company may be rubbing off on the Mouse. Not that all the news was good, but a 40% profit jump is great news in this economy? Shareholders and Wall Street were very happy to hear the good news. Theme parks and Resorts were down slightly, with bookings in the hotels being one of the largest negatives. The films unit was the jewel, with the top three films of the year (all greenlit by former Suit, Dick Cook) made by Disney. The television unit, specifically ESPN also posted great numbers. All in all, a great showing for the entertainment giant in general, and Iger in particular.
It shows that Disney magic can sometimes even avoid a recession...
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Please correct me if I"m wrong but I think you have a typo.. I don't think Dick Cook green-lit "Iron Man 2", but kudos to him anyways for bringing "Alice" and TS3 to the big screen; though "Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "Prince of Persia" both flopped big time this summer. I guess you win some and you lose some. Wartime ain't all that perfect.
He didn't greenlight it, but it was during his tenure I think Honor is trying to say. Last year was a bad year for the company and Cook got the blame for it. It only makes sense that he should get some of the credit for this year. Ross won't have anything to show till next late next year at the earliest before we can see if Iger made a good decision.
Hopefully they've learned from all the people now entering DCA that they shouldn't skimp on design. That is what makes us go to a Disney park over something like Universal or Six Flaggs. Imagine what would be designed right now had they not built this so cheaply. There may have already been a third park built, instead of all this fixing the second one.
You had better have learned from this Iger.
How does Steve Jobs' influence have anything to do with the latest financial reports? Why not give some credit to Bob Iger or some of the other people that have a more direct influence on the company's financial success?
The success of Toy Story 3 should go to John Lasseter and Pixar. The success of Iron Man 2 should go to the group at Marvel. Alice in Wonderland is the only one I would attribute to Dick Cook, but really the accolades should go to the marketing team because the movie wasn't that great.
As mentioned above Prince of Persia and the Sorcerer's Apprentice were both Dick Cook films that flopped big time along with When in Rome. The Last Song performed decently without being a smashing success.
I personally believe that studio execs (like football quarterbacks) get way too much credit and blame for the successes and failures of movies (and therefor are way overpaid). A studio exec has no idea how a movie will turn out based on a script. Really it comes down to having a great director working with a great team and the studio exec's job is to find those directors and put together those teams.
"Prince of Persia" had strong overseas box office (movies with foreign locations tend to do well in foreign markets - Go figure). While that may not be enough to greenlight a sequel, it may be enough to keep the brand alive with ancillary product, especially if Disney is serious about boosting their brand with young males.
I read that as Honor being metaphoric, since Apple is doing so well now despite the really crappy economy. Not that he was giving credit to Jobs.
Apple doing well? I'll give credit to Jobs... Don't hold it that way. They are facing multiple class-action lawsuits over antitrust laws and their iPhone 4 antenna failure. Honestly I don't see much difference between Apple and Microsoft anymore.
Prince of Persia is not a total flop. Yes it did not break records domestically but internationally it had a strong box office.
Sadly Sorceror did do quite bad but seems to have a steady flow of income coming in and should at break even or make a decent profit once it hits the shelves
Now that their profits are up, when will they start hiring?
For me, "Prince of Persia" flopped because it was intended to become a new brand in the Disney empire. I don't believe the toys are flying off shelves and I doubt most seven-year-olds would be willing to dress up as a bare chested Jake Gyllyhaal for Halloween. Many times we see a film like this do well internationally, but not well domestically (Last year's "Terminator: Salvation" is a good example of this). Unless Disney sees good/decent DVD/distribution sales for this, I doubt we will see future adventures especially when Marvel is now part of the team.
As for "Sorcerer's Apprentice", I just saw it this week and was pretty impressed. It was a decent feature, a good family movie on the lines of "National Treasure". Scheduling killed it, why did Disney think they could go up against "Inception"? I guess they are using the same mentality when scheduling "Tangled" as well.
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