"Franchises drive higher returns for the company," said Jay Rasulo, Disney's senior exec VP and chief financial officer. Rasulo noted that while only 40% of the studio's feature production dollars were spent to make franchise films last year, the results generated 60% of its overall revenue. This year, 80% of its production spending will be devoted to franchise features.
However, his comparison between Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Toy Story 3" is not quite a fair comparison.
While the live-action "Alice" has raked in more than $1.6 billion since its release in March, most of that was collected at the B.O., since the Tim Burton pic offered little opportunity for consumer products. Licensed merchandise homevideo and TV sales made $400 million.
"Toy Story 3," on the other hand, earned more than $1 billion at the B.O., plus $650 million on homevideo, $250 million from books, $220 million from videogames and $7.3 billion in other merchandise sales, while launching park rides and cruise ship shows, turning it into a $10 billion property.
"Toy Story 3" is already a part of Toy Story franchise. It was already selling. "Alice", on the other hand, isn't part of an existing franchise.
While I see the economic sense out of something like this, I hate to think that movies such as "Alice" would not have been made under the current proposed schemed. I'm sure the people at Pixar never consider merchandise and franchise possibilities when they make their movies. Yet, this is implicitly the criteria that appears to be used to finance new stand-alone projects. One can only hope that the remaining 20% of the Disney Studios production doesn't have that pressure of producing a franchise. Just produce good movies!
Zz.
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