This year Walt Disney lost an estimated $200m on the megaflop John Carter (Argh!). Now the world’s biggest media outfit by sales has The Avengers, which sold a record-setting $207m tickets in its first weekend (Kapow!). Action is desirable in films. Less so in business. Worse, the volatility comes with low margins. Since 2006, Disney’s studio entertainment business has had an average operating margin of 11 per cent. Its TV business generates 31 per cent, and grows much faster, too. So why does Disney bother? For the parties?
In fact, there is a very clear economic logic. Disney’s resorts (average margin in the mid-teens) and the consumer products division (nearly as profitable as TV) feed directly off the characters brought to life by the films. And the follow-on benefits of the films will be greater still if Disney’s interactive media business, which pushes movie-themed video games, turns profitable. That also explains the logic of Disney selling Miramax, a studio specialising in one-off films for grown-ups, for $530m in 2010, after buying Marvel, source of The Avengers characters, for $4bn. As good as No Country For Old Men was, it sold few action figures, and “There Will Be Blood – the Ride” never caught on at Disneyland.
The films, in short, animate the whole company to generate average returns on tangible assets of 10 per cent – and those returns are quite stable. In 2009, when profits at the film studio crashed by more than four-fifths (no hits that year, DVD sales were tumbling, and there was a recession) total return on assets was still a respectable 8 per cent.