Disney avenges at the box office with superhero blockbuster
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Disney avenges at the box office with superhero blockbuster
Stacey Vanek Smith: “The Avengers” movie took in more than $200 million over the weekend. It’s the biggest box office opening ever in the U.S. That is very good news for Disney, especially after a recent high-profile flop, as Mitchell Hartman reports.
Mitchell Hartman: Not only was “The Avengers” a huge blockbuster on U.S. screens-including IMAX and the screens you need those 3-D glasses for. It’s overtaken “The Hunger Games” worldwide.
But even super-lucrative superheroes may not avenge Disney’s most recent box office flop-the Confederate-officer-goes-to-Mars movie, “John Carter.”
Staci Kramer: “The Avengers” didn’t erase “John Carter.” “John Carter” is the kind of disaster that takes down a studio head.
That’s Staci Kramer of PaidContent.org, and she’s referring to Rich Ross, who lost his job at the top of Disney for the disaster that was “John Carter.”
Kramer says anything with superheroes like “Iron Man” and “Captain America” is likely to do well for Disney. But she says all this has come easy to the studio, which picked up Marvel—along with its characters and licensing deals—in 2010.
Kramer: “The Avengers” was something that was well in place when Disney acquired Marvel.”
But analyst Tuna Amobi at Standard & Poors says, even if Marvel created “The Avengers,” The Mouse House gets the credit.
Tuna Amobi: So while that was not a home-grown title, from a financial standpoint, which is really what Wall Street cares about, that success goes right to Disney’s bottom line.
Next up from the studios: “Iron Man 3” and “Thor 2.”
I’m Mitchell Hartman 1 – the original – for Marketplace.
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