Will Disney's Ball At The Box Office Continue In 2018?

The camera has started rolling and another great film is likely in the making. The 2018 box office seems on track with Marvel Studios’, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) , Black Panther heading for a record-breaking box office weekend.

Things certainly look rosy, with industry experts and analysts predicting that the film could fetch as much as $145 million in the domestic market only, in its opening weekend. That, indeed, is an astounding figure. But that’s the new normal for all Marvel Studios productions! Disney has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Black Panther Sets the Ball Rolling for 2018

Interestingly, Marvel Studios has emerged as the most sought-after brand with each of its 17 films in the last 10 years opening at number one, collecting more than $13.5 billion and setting new box-office records. This year also marks Marvel Studios’ 10th anniversary. Disney certainly has a lot of hopes pinned on Black Panther given that the film will also enjoy the four-day long President’s Day Weekend. Analysts are optimistic too with the opinion that it will garner more than $160 billion.

Given this scenario, the Chadwick Boseman-starrer might set a new February-opening weekend record, leaving behind Twenty-First Century Fox’s (NASDAQ:FOXA) Deadpool, which made $132 billion in 2016. Needless to say, Disney has been having a dream run at the box office. And if the $52.4 billion deal to acquire Fox’s film and television arms, as well as regional sports networks, (which Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) too has placed a bid) falls in place, Disney’s movie business is only expected to go from strength to strength.

Box Office Topper in 2017

Disney ended 2017 on a high with Star Wars: The Last Jedi debuting with the second biggest opening weekend at the domestic box office in the history, trailing only behind its 2015 predecessor Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Thefilm’s total domestic collections have been more than $617 million as of Feb 13, 2018 and more than $1.3 billion worldwide, making it the eight highest grossing film of all time in the United States. In fact, Disney has been tasting box office success for quite a while now. The last couple of years, 2016 and 2017, have been exceptionally great for the production behemoth.

According to box office tracker comScore, Disney emerged the box office winner for the second year in a row in 2017, with revenues of $2.41 billion. Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) took the number two spotgarneringrevenues of $2.03 billion.

Similarly, 2016 too had seen Disney registering robust revenues of $2.85 billion, while Warner Bros. was way behind with $1.88 billion. That makes the picture quite clear with the difference between the first and second position being almost $1 billion. And if these figures are not enough to tell the entire story, Disney released a lesser number of films compared with other Hollywood studios, with only 16 and 12 titles in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

Warner Bros. on the other hand released 31 films in 2017. Universal Studios and Fox came in third and fourth with revenues of $1.53 billion and $1.43 billion, respectively. In fact, these two studios also released more titles than Disney. While Universal Pictures, owned by Comcast, released 17 titles, Fox had as many as 38 films hitting theatres in 2017.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, a division of Sony Corporation of America (NYSE:SNE) , was the fifth-best performer, registering revenues of $1.06 billion. The studio released 23 titles, of which Spider-Man: Homecoming was the best, making $334 million. Lionsgate Entertainment Corp LGF came in sixth with only $885.1 million despite 31 releases.

Undoubtedly, Disney stands heads and shoulders above the competition. With only half the number of releases compared with other Hollywood studios and attractive revenue figures in the last two years, it can safely be said that most of Disney films struck the right chord at the box office. And this has been primarily because of the successful franchises the studio possesses.

Cashing in on Franchise Power

Time and again, it has been proved that franchisees have enjoyed a different kind of popularity. From Disney animation characters to the likes of Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Toy Story, Pirates of the Caribbean, Marvel Cinematic Universe characters and High School Musical, the company owns a wide array of franchises that have always helped it rake in healthy revenues.

In fact, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the highest grossing film of all time at the domestic box office. It also holds the records for biggest opening day at the domestic box office and biggest opening weekend at the domestic box office. Black Panther, with more than 5 million tweets has been declared by Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) as the most tweeted film of the year before its release.

Warner Bros, on the other hand, despite having prized franchises like Batman, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Matrix is way behind Disney both in numbers and performance of its titles at the box office. The same hold true for Universal that has franchises like Jurassic Park, The Fast and the Furious and The Mummy films.

The only other studio that comes close to Disney in this regard is Fox. So we can well presume what is about to come if Disney finally acquires Fox assets. First, the acquisition will give the company complete ownership of all Marvel characters under the Fox banner such as the Deadpool, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. Moreover, Disney gets to enjoy the enviable 80-year film library created by Fox with Avatar topping the list followed by genre films like Alien, Ice Age, Planet of the Apes and Predator.

All this will be a formidable addition to Disney’s already enviable lineup of releases in 2018. Black Panther is already heading for a great start and the coming months will see popular franchises like Avengers: Infinity War, Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Incredibles 2 hitting the theatres.

A Great Year Ahead

The production giant seems to be carrying on from where it had left in 2017 with an attractive bouquet of tiles slated for release. And if the Fox acquisition falls in place, the performance is expected to touch the sky, only to widen the huge gap between Disney and other studios.

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