Disney's Pirates Of The Caribbean Sequel Tops Box Office

The Walt Disney Company’s (NYSE:DIS) superb box office run continues with "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales", topping the Memorial Day weekend box office collections. During the four day holiday weekend, the movie garnered nearly $77 million domestically beating Dwayne Johnson starrer "Baywatch". In the first three days, the movie collected $62.2 million.

However, the opening weekend collections for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” were well below the previous three movies of the franchise. In 2011, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” collected $90 million domestically in the opening weekend, while in 2007 “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End” garnered a whopping $153 million over the Memorial Day weekend. In 2006, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest” collected $135 million over the opening weekend.

Meanwhile, if we will go by the "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" international performance the movie is doing reasonably well with total collection of $270.6 million during the opening weekend.

Will the Movie Success Continue?

Analysts believe that the coming two years will be the most fruitful for Disney. The studio is all set to continue with its success as it boasts of an impressive lineup of big budget movies up to 2018. Disney has outlined the release dates for most of its upcoming movies.

Cars 3 will be released on Jun 16, 2017. Other movies lined up for 2017 include “Thor: Ragnarok”, “Coco” and one of the most awaited and hyped release of the year “Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi”. In 2018, the company is anticipated to release “Black Panther”, “A Wrinkle in Time”, “Avengers: Infinity War”, “The Incredibles 2” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp”. The success of the company’s movies will ensure great business for its Consumer Products division as demand for merchandise associated with successful movies usually skyrockets as seen in case of Frozen.

Disney’s shares have outperformed the industry in the past six months driven by blockbuster performance of its movies. The company’s shares have gained 9.6%, while the Zacks categorized Media Conglomerates industry has increased nearly 3.8%.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Disney currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked stocks worth considering include NTN Buzztime, Inc. (NYSE:NTN) , Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. (NASDAQ:CETV) and Pearson (LON:PSON) plc (NYSE:PSO) . All these stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

NTN Buzztime shares have increased more than 13% in the past three months.

Central European Media Enterprises shares gave gained nearly 44% in the past three months.

In the past one month, Pearson stock has increased approximately 9%.

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