Disney Report Indicates that ‘Star Wars’ Movies Have Made Three Times Their Production Investment
As part of Disney’s latest presentation to shareholders as they fend off activist investor Nelson Peltz, the company has revealed encouraging statistics on their biggest brands, notably saying that the Star Wars film franchise has made 2.9 times the revenue as what they’ve spent on it. Here’s how to read these numbers.
There have been some misconceptions about what these numbers mean. For instance, one now-deleted viral post on Twitter took the report as an indication that Disney has made about $12B in revenue over about 12 years, based on applying the 2.9 multiplier to the $4B figure that Disney paid to purchase Lucasfilm.
However, this is not what the report suggests; these revenues are only in relation to how the theatrical releases have done, not including things like shows, video games, theme park attractions, and so on. The fine print on slide 9 of the aforelinked presentation (see a screenshot below) helps give better context to some of these numbers:
“Source: Company data. Reflects the ratio between revenue and investment on titles released following Disney’s acquisition of the IP. Revenue reflects aggregate 10-year revenue streams, both generated and expected, directly associated theatrical releases, including theatrical, home entertainment, VT (pay and free), and consumer products.
Does not include derivative revenue streams, such as park attractions, nor does it include DTC originals associated with those franchises or pre-established franchise consumer products revenue. Investment reflects film production cost and print and advertising associated with the theatrical release of the titles, and in the case of animated titles it also includes production overhead. Investment does not include any additional distribution costs overhead.”
CNBC reported years ago that Disney had already made a profit off their Lucasfilm purchase, and that happened after Solo came out. Since then, there have been additional expenses, from multiple productions (series and movies) to building theme park rides, but they have also come with their own income. It’s also worth considering the way revenues for all the Disney Plus shows are measured in an unconventional way, given that a single subscription covers a lot of potential content, and it’s not as simple as just measuring every account that watched one episode of one show; as such, it is easier to not include the shows when accounting for overall long-term profit.
As it stands, Lucasfilm has had four mega-hits (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker, and Rogue One) and one flop (Solo) when it came to Star Wars; in total, their combined box office represents over $5.9B, with expenses from Disney’s official budget listings on each film exceeding $1.2B before accounting for costs allocated for ad budgets. You can see a breakdown of how Star Wars fares compared to some of Disney’s other biggest brands (specifically, Frozen, Toy Story, and Avengers) below:
Interestingly, Frozen is included alongside “acquired” IPs like Toy Story, Avengers, and Star Wars despite it being developed entirely in-house, though it’s likely there as a frame of comparison to show the overall strength of that IP relative to the ones that they’ve acquired (which are no slouches in terms of revenue generation).
There’s an interesting emphasis on specific brands as opposed to the entire catalog of each of their respective divisions – Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, and Lucasfilm, respectively. Lucasfilm’s other offerings since the Disney purchase, the animated musical Strange Magic and the franchise-concluding Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – both of which flopped at the box office – are omitted from this list, as are the likes of fellow big-time underperformers like Disney Animation’s Strange World, Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, and Marvel’s The Marvels. Accentuating the positive is the aim.
Breaking down these numbers, it’s not too shocking to see that Avengers has a slight edge over Star Wars with a similar number of movies in the Disney era – none of the movies in the series have flopped at all and the lowest-grossing one still cleared $1.4B, the second-lowest-grossing made over $1.5B, and the highest-grossing two made over $2B each (one of which was the highest-grossing movie of all time until Avatar was re-released once again).
Compare that with three $1B+-grossers, a $2B+-grosser, and a box office disappointment, with these movies generally costing less than Marvel’s Avengers films but not making as much internationally. But both Toy Story and Frozen seem to have them beat because animation costs generally were lower for their productions (topping out at $200M, which is beneath the floor of what the average Star Wars or Avengers budget is), though Toy Story‘s would be higher if not for Lightyear being a pretty sizable flop.
These numbers and brands being singled out indicate continued interest in their respective franchises overall, even beyond the films themselves, and that further development with them is heavily emphasized – note that the timelines on the image point out that there’s another Toy Story, two more Avengers and Frozen movies, and three Star Wars movies and counting in the next few years.
Lucasfilm has been stuck between a rock and a hard place about the next theatrical installment, as the planned Rogue Squadron movie never materialized (although, depending on who you ask, that might be changing), a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and a pair of extensive strikes held up development for Star Wars films as Lucasfilm pivoted toward streaming. As it stands, it appears that Lucasfilm’s model will once again emphasize bringing Star Wars back to the big screen after a multi-year break, only they will also be tasked with balancing shows on top of that. In any case, it appears that the brand remains strong, and can potentially be supported at the House of Mouse for years to come.
Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.
