Much Needed, You Say?

Mr. Wible doesn't appear to get around much ...

The studio’s November 21 release is poised to become “a much-needed hit,” Janney Capital Markets’ Anthony Wible says this morning as he raised his recommendation on DreamWorks Animation to “neutral” from “sell.” Tracking data for the fantasy adventure film “has spiked on the release of new trailers and reached a higher than expected level of awareness” — which is impressive since the studio hasn’t begun heavily marketing Guardians.

... And I say that because DWA's last two pictures have done sort of okay at the box office.

Madgascar 3 owns a worldwide gross of $621 million.

The feature before that, a tale of a daring kitty cat, collected $555 million.

And sure, when you're a stand-alone company, you want every picture you launch to be a box office monster, and it looks promising for The Guardians, but come on already. What do you have to do to get into the "doing more than okay" category?

Knock out nothing but billion-dollar franchises?

Mr. Wible thinks that the new holiday release will earn $663 mill globally. As anyone can see, this is far, far better than the paltry $621 million Mad 3 took in. No wonder Wibs thinks Guardians is a much-needed booster rocket. He appears to believe that half a billion in gross receipts is a borderline flop.