Last week, Steven Mallas asked, Disney's 'Toy Story 3' Is Here: Does the Market Care? We'll see Monday how Wall Street rewards Walt Disney Company's (DIS) shares, but this weekend's box-office receipts indicate that moviegoers very much care about the continuing adventures of Buzz, Woody, and the rest of the gang. Fans were waiting anxiously for the latest installment of the Tom-Hanks-led franchise, which hit theaters initially in 1995 (part 2 was released in 1999).

The film was a strong number-one at the box office this weekend (the 11th Pixar title to nab the top spot) and secured $109 million in North American ticket sales. Analysts are now targeting a domestic gross of more than $400 million. This was Pixar's best opening ever (even when adjusting for inflation).

World Wrestling Entertainment (NYSE: WWE) entered a match it apparently was unprepared to win this time around. I'm talking about a match for the most coveted prize on Wall Street: The Earnings Championship Belt.

During the second quarter, WWE had to lie down for the count. The top line saw a depressing decrease of nearly 6%, coming in at $129.7 million. The bottom line saw no growth whatsoever, as WWE earned $0.10 per diluted share, the same amount that was earned in the year-ago period. According to Briefing.com, this represents a miss of two pennies. One thing that must be noted is that the big Wrestlemania event took place during the second quarter last year and the first quarter this year.

Of course, one of the most fascinating elements of WWE's stock is its incredible yield. Right now, the company is trading at a yield greater than 9%. Considering WWE's massive brand power in sports entertainment, and the fact that wrestling should always be with us, that sounds like a great deal, correct? It could be over the long term.

However, a look at the cash-flow statement does not offer a lot of encouragement, to be honest. Operational cash flow declined massively, dropping 94% during the six-month period. And for both the quarterly period and the half-year period, there was negative free cash flow by management's own calculation. So, as can be seen, servicing a dividend with no free cash flow is like Rey Mysterio trying to body slam Andre the Giant.

For those who love to follow the business of Hollywood -- count yours truly as one of the many -- the following Reuters article contains data of interest. It appears that 2007 was a banner year for Tinsel Town, according to numbers released by the Motion Picture Association of America. Revenues at multiplexes worldwide jumped 4.7% to $26.7 billion. In the United States, the growth was even better -- theaters at home took in $9.6 billion, good for an appreciation rate of over 5%.

But there's another side to the story. Ticket prices, you see, increased 5% in the U.S. This inflationary aspect is what essentially led to the domestic growth, for while approximately 1.4 billion tickets were sold, there was no rise in the number of tickets sold. That should be ultimately disappointing to studios at Disney (NYSE: DIS), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), TWX (NYSE: TWX), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Sony (NYSE: SNE), and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal. Oh, and here's another not-so-impressive item: the average cost to produce a film and then promote it came in at nearly $107 million. This statistic represented an increase of 6.3%.

Sunday night, while the writers and producers in Los Angeles were doing their strike countdown, a good friend was catching a flight to Albuquerque to start production on a new feature film. It seems that New Mexico is offering tax credits that make it worthwhile for a feature film to be produced there, yet again "stealing" revenue from Los Angeles and California.

While no one on the production was interested in leaving town, the studio decided that the tax credits made it worthwhile. Sooooooo, he and his 80 crew members blew town to set up shop for months outside of Hollywood, and the state of California let them go. Vancouver and Toronto have established solid credentials as filming locations at a discount to Hollywood, and they have all the trappings for major productions. With about $350 million in film and television income last year, Louisiana has established itself as one of the nation's most popular film centers, and 40 other states are looking to follow suit.

California is losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually to these "runaway" productions. Runaway used to mean a film was over budget, or it was breaking box office records. Now it means they will film somewhere else.

Surprisingly, California, with its movie star Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is doing little to keep the productions here. You would think The Governator would be interested in the subject, but alas -- nothing. No matching tax credits, no partial tax credits, no competitive move whatsoever.

The wigs have been put away, the red carpet's been walked, and the cast and crew behind Hairspray -- the latest movie musical to hit the big screen -- is anxiously awaiting the movie's July 20 U.S. premiere.

Distributed by New Line Cinema -- a division of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) -- Hairspray returns to the early 1960s to follow the tale of "pleasantly plump" Tracy Turnblad as she aims for a role on a television dance program while attempting to battle social ills. The movie, based on the 2002 Broadway musical, which was based on the 1988 (non-musical) John Waters movie, has a cavalcade of stars, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Queen Latifah, Allison Janney, and Amanda Bynes. Newcomer Nikki Blonsky won the central role of Tracy.

One member of the Hairspray contingent that could really benefit from the film's success is John Travolta, who takes on the traditionally cross-dressed role of Tracy's mother, Edna. Since Battlefield Earth, the Scientology-inspired 2000 film widely panned as the worst move ever made, the star of Grease and Pulp Fiction has suffered some missteps, including A Love Song for Bobby Long, Domestic Disturbance, and Be Cool. Not until this Spring's Wild Hogs did Travolta appear to have any hope of ditching the box-office poison title.

Viacom (NYSE: VIA) subsidiary Paramount Pictures, which recently distributed the hit Will Ferrell comedy Blades of Glory, followed the premiere with a private gathering for the cast and crew. The event cost the studio about $50,000, or roughly one-tenth of what an average premiere party might run.

A studio executive told The New York Times that "There has been a cultural shift in Hollywood where the size of a party doesn't show how much you believe in a movie anymore ... a party is not going to sell movie tickets."

With shareholders and corporate partners eager to trim costs, the nation's movie studios are reportedly scaling back the high-cost hubbub that accompanies a movie's big-screen release. Some production firms are forgoing the lavish after-premiere parties, while others are scrapping the red-carpet premiere concept entirely, preferring to host laidback industry screenings.

Marketing costs among the major studios crested in 2003 but have steadily been paring back. Last year, costs dropped 4.4% to $34.5 million. This move helped offset the 3.4% increase in the average price of a film, which hit $65.8 million, according to the Times.

That trend is expected to continue, so those of you in the red-carpet business might be seeing a decline in sales. Same is true for purveyors of top-shelf champagne and caviar.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

We're not even to Memorial-Day weekend, and another box-office record has been broken.

Shrek the Third, the latest in the successful animated series from DreamWorks Animation SKG (NYSE: DWA), enjoyed the third-biggest opening for a domestic film, and easily broke the record for the genre held by Shrek 2, which banked $108 million during its first weekend of release.

The latest adventures of green ogre Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) and his compadres, including wife Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and donkey sidekick (Eddie Murphy), drew in $122 million in box-office receipts, during its first weekend, easily exceeding industry expectation of between $80 million and $110 million. Remember that doesn't include the mammoth sales of Shrek merchandise.

Other stars lending their vocal talents to the movie include triple-hyphenate Justin Timberlake, Antonio Banderas, and The Office's John Krasinski.

Don't look for Shrek's stay at the top to last for two long, however.

Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End comes swashbuckling into theaters this upcoming Memorial Day weekend, and will almost certainly nab the number-one spot. Last year's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (the second in the series) had the biggest domestic weekend opening ever until Spider-Man 3 broke that record earlier this month.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

Despite lukewarm reviews and a smattering of sub-plots spilling over in a bloated script (in this fan's opinion), Spider-Man 3 ensnared millions of fans in its web over the weekend, setting box-office records and raking in $375 million in ticket sales around the globe. The third installment following the escapades of our friendly neighborhood arachnid, trumped the previous record holder, Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, which banked $254 million in its opening weekend in 2005.

In North America, the Tobey Maguire/Kirsten Dunst vehicle took in $148 million since Friday, topping the domestic box-office record set by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest last July. Additionally, Spider-Man 3 -- distributed by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp. ADR (NYSE: SNE) -- set a single-day record on Friday, selling $59.3 million in tickets, inching above the earlier record, also set by Dead Man's Chest. The latest installment was no frugal feat, costing nearly $260 million to produce.