The newest Avatar film is finally in theaters.
The sequel Avatar: The Way of Water has hit theaters 13 years after the original movie and there has been some major hype around it. However, the movie theater industry hasn’t returned to a pre-pandemic status and the film underperformed on its opening weekend. Now, Disney is having to deal with the consequences.
Although it was expected that Avatar: The Way of Water would revive a dying movie format, we knew the success of this film could mean big things for Disney. The movie came in with $134 million on its opening weekend according to CNBC — industry analysts predicted $175 million and Disney predicted $135 million to $150 million.
So the movie didn’t perform as well as Disney hoped — how did that impact stock? For the most part, we’ve been watching a steady decline throughout 2022. And after the news that Avatar didn’t do as well as predicted, Disney stock has dropped pretty significantly.
As of December 20th, the Walt Disney Company stock has hit $85.78. This is about the same number that stocks were in March 2020 when the pandemic closed the Disney theme parks. This is about $10 lower than we saw just a week ago on December 13th, 2022.
It’s interesting that stock has hit a new low considering Disney stocks were on the rise just a month ago when Disney first announced Iger was returning as CEO.
This is a hard hit for Disney — Business Insider reports that stock has plunged 45% this year. That means Disney could have its worst annual performance in last 5 decades.
After Iger returned as CEO, Disney fans were eager to know what his plans were. It became clear that restructuring the media division of the company was clear — several executives have already left Disney.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on Disney stock and let you know of any major changes. Stay tuned to AllEars for updates.
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Have you seen Avatar: The Way of Water? Let us know your thoughts about it in the comments.
Sitting in a theater for a 3 hour long movie may make people wait until they can stream in their comfy living room. I get antsy in a theater even if it’s only 2 hours long
I’m curious to know if it was James Cameron’s statement that the film needed to be the third or fourth highest grossing film all time to get a profit, that number being $2 billion, that is causing the stock drop. There is simply no way that Disney would pony up that kind of money for one film! It is being widely reported that the production budget was $250 million and the film nearly doubled that in box office receipts in its first weekend. Disney will be fine. There will be a drop off over the second week (there is for nearly every film) but I would not expect it to be much.