(Sixth in a series of Studio Report Cards; Tuesday -- Lionsgate)
Previously:
PARAMOUNT: Paramount Set to Grab the Global B.O. Crown Following Huge Year
WARNER BROS.: With Biggest 'Potter' Yet, Warner Just Shy of Its Record 2010
SONY: Studio Bats for Solid Average
FOX: Low Risk, Low Reward
UNIVERSAL: Studio rebounded, But Still Had Too Many Misses
WALT DISNEY PICTURES
Grade: B-
Disney downsized the number of films it released this year by 20 percent to just 14, yet global box-office revenue wasn't that far off from 2010 ($3.36 billion vs. $3.77 billion). The studio's one big hit, "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," was somewhat offset by the costly failure of Robert Zemeckis's "Mars Needs Moms."
Burdened the last few years by a flurry of ambitious films that were undermined by their costs -- "A Christmas Carol," "Prince of Persia" and "Tangled" -- Disney downshifted in 2011 to a lower-risk strategy.
The studio reduced its slate from 19 films to 14, with four of the titles provided from DreamWorks under its distribution deal. And the studio experimented -- unsuccessfully -- with low-cost production models, such as the youth-oriented "Prom," which was shot for just $8 million (but only grossed $10.1 million).
Also read: Studio Report Card: For Disney, Big Hits But Also Big Bills
"One of Disney's sins in the past was releasing too many movies," Matthew Harrigan, an analyst with Wunderlich Securities, told TheWrap.
Unlike 2010, when the studio boasted two titles that grossed more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office, "Alice in Wonderland" and "Toy Story 3," Disney had only one major hit this year in "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides."
It also had one significant flop, with Robert Zemeckis's "Mars Needs Moms" -- which was put into motion before Rich Ross took over as chairman of the studio in October 2009 -- grossing just $39 million on a $150 million production budget.
Through last week, Disney's film slate had grossed $3.36 billion globally, down about 12 percent from 2010's $3.77 billion despite a 20 percent decline in the number of movies released.
Overall profit for Disney's studio entertainment operations for the fiscal year ending Oct. 1 -- a tally that also includes home video -- decreased 11 percent to $618 million on revenue of $6.4 billion.
With the international box office driving titles like "Pirates of the Caribbean" -- the "On Stranger Tides" installment took in a whopping $802.8 million in foreign theatrical revenue -- Disney's production engine is now focused on making a limited number of titles that have global appeal across theatrical, home entertainment and merchandising channels.
"We're banking on something consumers can enjoy on a global basis, and stories that are universally appealing to a very broad, diverse, international audience," Disney's distribution chief, Dave Hollis, told TheWrap.
