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Disney's 'Marvel'ous Run at the Box Office to Continue

The Walt Disney Company (DIS) has had an amazing run at the box office so far. Roaring success of the animated movie Frozen was followed by superb box office response to Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Maleficent.

These three movies currently are in the list of top 5 highest grossing films of 2014 (so far). Guardians of the Galaxy, from the Marvel Studios, tops the list with a domestic box office collection of nearly $315 million, followed by another movie from Marvel’s stable, Captain America 2, occupying the no. 2 position with a collection of $259.8 million. Angelina Jolie starrer Maleficent with $240.1 million comes at no.5 position. Frozen has crossed the $1 billion mark to emerge as one of the top animated movies of all time.

Fiscal 2014 greatly benefited from the stellar performance of its movies helping Disney to post the better-than-expected results in all the three quarters. In the third quarter, Studio revenues grew 14% while operating income registered a substantial year-over-year gain.

Disney had acquired Marvel Studios in 2009 for $4 billion. Ever since, Marvel has churned out some highest-grossing movies of all time for Disney, validating its money-making ability.

These films include Avengers, the third highest grosser of all time, collecting $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office. Further, Iron Man 3 with a collection of $1.2 billion emerged as the sixth highest grossing movie. Avatar, distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, a subsidiary of Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. (FOXA), dominates the list with $2.8 billion.

However, 2014 deserves special credit as Marvel enjoyed unprecedented success. Marvel movies, including Sony Corp’s (SNE) The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Twenty-First Century Fox‘s X-Men: Days Of Future Past along with Disney’s Captain America 2 and Guardians, had record openings amassing over $90 million in their respective debut weekends. Though Disney owns Marvel Studio, some of the studio’s popular characters like X-Men and Spider Man are owned by other film production companies.

Marvel has such a powerful appeal that even an obscure series like Guardians, without any popular star cast, catapulted to the no.1 slot. Cashing on this appeal, Marvel recently announced an impressive movie slate up to 2017.

Much anticipated Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man are expected to release on May 2015 and July 2015, respectively. Captain America 3 scheduled for May 2016 was likely to clash with another hyped movie Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice from Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc (TWX). As expected, Warner Bros did shift the date to Mar 2016. Batman Vs Superman is a sequel to the massively successful Man of Steel (released 2013). The year 2017 will most probably have the sequels to Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy.

In addition, Marvel is likely to bring lesser known characters from its universe on the celluloid. Notable titles include Doctor Strange and Black Widow. Rumors have started to galore regarding an Iron Man 4 being in the pipeline.

The explosive performance of its movies at the box office has added more value to the already strong Marvel brand. In addition to Marvel, Disney also has releases from Pixar and Lucas films. Star Wars Episode VII, Disney’s most ambitious project in recent times, is slated to release on Dec 18, 2015.

We believe that the studio will continue with its fabulous run in the coming days given the impressive pipeline. The success of its movies will also mean great business for its Consumer Products division as merchandise associated with these successful movies would provide huge business opportunities. Frozen related toys are this year’s hottest selling items for the holidays.

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