Marvel Q3 Numbers: Revenues decreased, but still profitable; Plus Disney Sale Update

[TheVileOne]

From HR:

Marvel Q3 profit down
Due to a lack of feature film releases this year
By Georg Szalai
Nov 3, 2009


NEW YORK -- Marvel Entertainment reported lower third-quarter financials on Tuesday due to a lack of feature film releases this year.

Film and licensing results in the year-ago period benefited from "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk."

The entertainment company posted a quarterly profit of $20.4 million, less than half the $50.6 million recorded in the year-ago period.

Revenue fell from $182.5 million to $105.7 million.

Marvel said it continues to expect its sale to Walt Disney to close by year's end.

"Despite the absence of any Marvel Studios feature film releases in 2009, Marvel continued to deliver solid operating performance across all our operating segments," Marvel chairman Morton Handel said. "Anticipation for the high profile "Iron Man 2" feature film continues to build, and we are focusing our efforts on the film's May 2010 release and the related licensing opportunities."

He also cited "solid progress" on the development and pre-production of "Thor," "The First Avenger: Captain America" and "The Avengers" feature film projects.

About the upcoming sale, he said: "Disney is the ideal home to nurture and further develop the distinctive Marvel brands because of its ability to extend the breadth, diversity and global reach of Marvel-branded entertainment and consumer products."

Yikes, a 60% profit drop . . . but honestly this isn't too bad and probably to be expected. All that was released this year was Wolverine and that was Fox anyway. I think the good news is that this shows they made up for some of the losses probably with things like the animated DVD releases. We know that Hulk VS. was a strong seller.

Also it does note that the Disney sale still isn't final yet but probably will be by early 2010. So as of now, Marvel is not yet a subsidiary of Disney.

This thread was made in honor of Advanced Dark and Blades Shades.

 

[Raiden]

The drop is to be expected, since Marvel has had no movies released except for Wolverine this year. Hopefully the deal to Disney will be finalized soon, although with that lawsuit from Kirby's descendants still unresolved, it does cast a shadow on the whole deal.

 

[TheVileOne]

I think that will ultimately be settled somehow, but we'll see. I still want to know how creator ownership worked in the 60's with comics.

Because I'm not sure how the Kirby estate can do that unless Kirby had some sort of confirmed ownership of the characters he created and worked on.

Just remember, Disney's first studio cartoon creation, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was not owned by him for years. It was only until recently that Disney gained ownership over Oswald.

 

[Octoberist]

at first, i wasn't so bothered by the drop. but then i thought about it..60 % is a lot.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah its a lot, but its by the nature of last year they had two big Marvel studio releases. This year they didn't have any. Wolverine was Fox's fault really.

 

[TheVileOne]

Just for comparison, Time Warner, Inc. had a 40% drop in profits this quarter. Though that's all of Time Warner (cable, phones, and everything else).

 

[Docker2.0]

Marvel's drop isn't that bad really. They had no real releases except Wolverine and that was through Fox. Next year will be the measuring stick with IM2. 2011 should be bigger with Thor and Cap coming out, and not to mention any DVD releases but here's hoping.

 

[TheVileOne]

Yeah but next year Iron Man 2 will be their only release. Iron Man 2 at this point is pretty much as close to a guaranteed hit as you can get.

So I think 2011 will be a much bigger litmus test. 2011 I think is when Thor Tales of Asgard is coming out as well. I forget if Planet Hulk animated is 2011 or 2010.

 

[Spider-Vader]

Planet Hulk animated film is in 2010.