Pirates, Cars rock Disney profits

(Source: www.imdb.com)

No big surprise: The Walt Disney Company more than doubled their profits over the previous quarter, thanks to flicks like Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Disney's movie division was responsible for most of the profit-making, with the live-action Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest making $421 million domestically and a whopping $640 million overseas.

Cars, the first movie brought out as part of the new Disney/Pixar partnership, was a much more modest hit for the Mouse House, bringing in $244 million domestically. Cars was considered a minor disappointment for the studio, as it was expected to cross the $300 million barrier. But, considering many animated movies didn't even make back their initial investment during their theatrical runs this year, I doubt that many Disney executives are crying into the Moët & Chandon about it.

Of course, none of these numbers include how much cash Disney raked in for the associated toys for these flicks. Many news reports discussed how well Cars toys and books were selling for the Mouse House, and claimed that this was a saving grace for the "underperforming" movie. It's also believed that toys, posters and other Pirates of the Caribbean products were also selling like water at a hotsauce convention.

Either way, Disney's position is a vast improvement over this time last year, when negotiations with Pixar were going down the hole, and Disney was forced to dump all the dregs from the Miramax partnership with the Weinstein brothers (like Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm) on the market.

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