Viacom Inc.’s VIAB film division – Paramount Pictures’ – much-anticipated flick, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation has set the cash register ringing. Released on Jul 31 across 3,956 screens, the film made a stunning $55.5 million domestic box office debut this weekend, comfortably surpassing the $48.7 million opening weekend expectations.
Overall, the movie garnered $120 million (both domestic and foreign) and is also the second biggest release after Mission Impossible II, which had collected $57.8 million in the opening Memorial Day holiday weekend. As evident from the opening weekend figures, the movie is expected to easily rise above its production budget of $150 million in the next few days.
Interestingly, the Mission Impossible movie franchise accumulated over $2 billion since its debut in 1996 and has produced four super-hits so far, with an average collection of $500 million per movie. The last movie from the franchise registered nearly $694 million at the global box-office.
Lack of movie releases during the weekend has driven revenue collections for the fifth release from the Mission Impossible series. Taking these factors into consideration, we strongly believe that the movie is favorably positioned to cross the $500 million mark and eclipse the performance of the previous release from the series – Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – which collected roughly $694 million.
In the last two quarters, Viacom’s Film business suffered considerably due to lack of hit movie releases. Also, the company’s Global Theatrical revenues deteriorated 10%.in the last quarter. Meanwhile, taking into consideration its past success, we are highly optimistic that the latest movie from the Mission Impossible franchisee will certainly live up to expectations and boost the company’s Film segment.
Comcast Corp. CMCSA-owned Universal Pictures has so far been dominating the 2015 U.S. box-office with the launch of two successive movies – Jurassic World and Furious 7. Both the films crossed the $1 billion mark globally. Meanwhile, The Walt Disney Co’.s DIS Buena Vista studio, which owns 20.2% share on revenue basis in 2015, continues its dream box-office run with successes like Avengers Age of Ultron and Inside Out. On the other hand, Time Warner Inc’.s TWX Warner Bros. has been enjoying the third spot in 2015 with a 17.3% market share.
Viacom currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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