Thursday, June 01, 2006

The Street Squeezes DreamWorks Animation

You open a film in the #2 slot, then only drop 30% in your second weekend, and the New York stock exchange still isn't happy... Witness this article from today's Hollywood Reporter: some analysts are downcast that "Over the Hedge" didn't bump up against $50 million when running its first lap, and are ratcheting down their estimates on the company's stock price. Nevertheless, DWA moved higher into day's equity trading.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, the problem is that DW is on record saying that boxoffice take will likely only return the budget, marketing and distribution money. They said they will not see a profit on OTH until DVD sales com in.

Anonymous said...

proof costs for CG is getting out of control...

Steve Hulett said...

Methinks that the problems are multi-fold:

1) Counterprogramming "Da Vinci" was maybe not such a great idea; better if the flick had come out the week before.

2) "Ice Age" maybe sucked some of the oxygen out of the air.

3) The aggressive tie-ins with WalMart didn't pan out super well (as Kevin noted earlier).

4) The glut of CGI features is perhaps starting to take a toll.

OTOH, if the film returns budget, marketing and distribution money on its theatrical release, that ain't shabby. The DVD release will drive it well into sizable profits.

But let's see what happens with cars, shall we?

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