Will good 'Pirates of the Caribbean' numbers give Disney a boost?

The third installment of Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End brought in $142 million in the US over the Memorial Day weekend. That is behind what the Pirates II did, but it still puts the current movie in a position of having one of the best openings ever. The worldwide total for the opening weekend was over $400 million.

Disney's (NYSE: DIS) studio operation made the movie. But, will the big open be enough for Wall Street?

Two other films out in the last month did slightly better than Pirates, and both were sequels. One was Spiderman III and the other a new installment of Shrek. Reuters is of the opinion that none of these new films did particularly well: "In a sign that big-budget sequels may be losing their allure, North American ticket sales for the first three big films of the lucrative summer season -- Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End -- have not kept pace with their respective predecessors."

But, that may miss the point. Each film made money, and probably a lot of money. Whether they did better than the films that came before them should not be the defining factor for investors. Studios are not in the business of putting out products that do "better" or "worse", they are in the business of making money.

One of the reasons that Disney's stock is near a 52-week high is that its studios did well last quarter. Profits rose sharply although revenue did not. The company is "managing" the unit well. While revenue declined from $1.774 billion to $1.55 billion, operating profit rose from $147 million to $235 million.

Records are nice, but profits are better.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.