Well, I have to hand it to The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS). The company is doing well with Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Early estimates for the three-day box-office weekend at domestic theaters place the movie at the top spot (according to Boxofficemojo). Believe it or not, the talking-canine project has been in first place for two weekends in a row. I guess I got my answer in terms of the playing power of the Disney pooch. It took in about $17 million as of this writing, and it has grossed over $50 million thus far.

With Halloween approaching, you just knew Sony Corporation's (NYSE: SNE) Quarantine picture was going to do decently. It came in second, with about $14 million to its celluloid credit. Body of Lies from Time Warner, Inc. (NYSE: TWX) was third, and Eagle Eye from Viacom (NYSE: VIA) came in fourth. The latter is doing moderately well, not a huge hit, but not quite a disappointment, either, considering the box-office time period we're in. It currently has $70 million in cumulative grosses. I thought Eye was going to be a much bigger hit, but the market apparently is telling me that I was wrong on that count. The Express, by the way, bombed. It was released by General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) Universal, and it grossed about $4.7 million, meaning it may be in either sixth or seventh place after final numbers are tallied. Not good at all for the football feature's debut weekend.

Disney's movie division will hopefully be able to maximize the profit potential of Chihuahua. I'm sure the powers that be are already at work on turning this concept into a franchise. That's what Disney likes best: not just one picture, but a whole string of them that can drive merchandise sales and theme-park rides. Who knows what will happen, but as an aside, I can honestly say that the stocks mentioned above are looking pretty interesting in terms of the price-cuts they've been given by the slashing claws of all the bears out on Wall Street. Long-term investors looking for exposure to the media sector should give them some due diligence (but always remember the context of the current volatile market, where anything cheap can suddenly get cheaper still).

Disclosure: I own Disney and GE; positions can change at any time.

Disney's "Chihuahua" retains its box-office bite originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.