The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) had a great weekend -- a lot better than Tom Brady et al.'s weekend, to be sure. I don't care about football, but I do care about Disney, since I am long the stock. Its Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds concert film grossed about $29 million for the three-day frame. Not too shabby.
I liked the original concept for the release of this film: get in and out, quick and dirty, with a one-week release schedule. Of course, I knew in my gut that, if successful, the run would be extended (I think everyone's gut probably told them the same thing). According to reports, the film will be allowed an extra week of play.
As a Disney shareholder, I obviously want profits maximized to the fullest extent conceivable. But, I wish Disney acted a bit edgier with this one. The company should have released it just for one weekend, taken in the dough (I presume this was a pretty low-budget affair), and then dumped the film on DVD and pay-per-view immediately on Monday. It is time to find out once and for all if near day-and-date release patterns truly can work for major projects. Remember, there's been a lot of buzz in recent years about cutting costs by simultaneously releasing movies to multiple platforms; I think this would have been a great test case for the media industry.











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-05-2008 @ 9:30AM
ableema said...
Why can't they continue to make money with something that is actually o k for children to watch??We couldn't see it last weekend and our kids don't go out on school nights.
We certainly can't afford to go to the concert so this is the only way my 10 and 12 year old daughters will see it!
Go Miley!! I hope you make billions and have a long happy productive career!
2-11-2008 @ 5:43PM
Andrew said...
Songwriters get residuals for their songs and if Steve Mallas wrote a novel that sold he'd be getting residuals for the book sales. The directors, actors, producers, composers and studios all get residuals on a movie's success.... but someone is actually suggesting that the writer, who many times wrote on SPEC, shouldn't get a small slice of the residual pie! Everyone involved in the movie making process takes risks... but not everyone gets rewarded for failure.