'The Force Awakens' Disney Q3 Home Entertainment Success

9 Aug, 2016 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment retail releases Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Zootopia (released June 7) contributed to Walt Disney Studios generating third-quarter (ended July 2) operating income of $766 million, up 62% from operating income of $472 million during the previous-year period.

Revenue increased 40% to $2.8 billion, from $2 billion a year ago. In fact, operating income of $2.3 billion through three quarters has already surpassed the studio’s record operating income of fiscal 2015.

Disney holds four of the current top-five domestic theatrical releases in 2016, including No. 1 Finding Dory, with $475 million, and the top-four global releases with Captain America: Civil War with $1.15 billion, Zootopia at $1.02 billion; The Jungle Book at $941 million, and Finding Dory at $872 million.

As expected, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has generated more than $134 million in revenue from 5.7 million combined DVD/Blu-ray Disc sales, according to The-Numbers.com.

The studio’s stellar home entertainment’s results don’t even mention Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, which is No. 3 in domestic retail sales with $50 million from more than 2.6 million combined discs sold.

Disney said the increase in home entertainment results was primarily due to higher unit sales of the aforementioned titles and “net effective pricing” compared with the international performance of Big Hero 6 in the prior-year quarter.

Indeed, Big Hero 6 was the third-best-selling disc in 2015 with $94 million in revenue from more than 5.2 million discs sold.

Separately, Disney CEO Bob Iger said initial fan support for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Lucasfilm’s first standalone "Star Wars" movie outside the numbered saga films is on par with reaction to last year’s buildup to Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

“Views for the first Rogue One trailer were about even with the first trailer for The Force Awakens when it debuted, which tells us there's a lot of interest and growing excitement about this movie,” Iger said on the fiscal call.

The film is slated to debut theatrically Dec. 16.

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