The box-office collection estimates for the most awaited movie in recent times, The Walt Disney Company’s DIS Star Wars: The Force Awakens is skyrocketing. Financial bellwether, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. GS has increased its box office collection estimates for the movie.
Not only are movie lovers pumped up as Star Wars: The Force Awakens will hit the theaters tomorrow after a decade, but Disney shareholders are also very excited and banking on this movie. The positive vibe surrounding the movie is pushing up the Disney stock, which has gained 5.3% in the previous three trading sessions.
Goldman has increased its box office collection estimates for the movie to $1.95 billion from $1.5 billion. The domestic collection is estimated to be $750 million whereas the movie is expected to earn $1.2 billion globally. Goldman Sachs further said that the company’s fiscal 2016 earnings per share will increase by 2 cents or 0.4% for increase of every $100 million in box office sales.
Per the market buzz, the movie is set to become the biggest opening ever in the month of December, breaking the record of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which earned $85 million domestically in the opening weekend of December 2012. Analysts have estimated that the movie will collect $130 million to $150 million during the opening weekend. Lucasfilm started the advance ticket sales from the month of October.
If we go by movie ticket seller, Fandango, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has already smashed all records in advance ticket selling. IMAX Corporation said that it has sold tickets twice that of the earlier record. Disney has entered into a tie up with IMAX to release The Force Awakens on all IMAX screens across North America for a four week-long period, from the time of its release on Dec 18. Moreover, most of the overseas IMAX locations will be screening The Force Awakens for a month.
However, it will be difficult for Star Wars: The Force Awakens to break the record of Avatar, which became the highest grossing movie ever with $2.8 billion in worldwide collections. The second film to collect more than $2 billion was Titanic. Although, if this seventh Star Wars episode manages to break the records of these two movies, it won’t come as a surprise given the kind of popularity it has enjoyed in the past few months.
Disney, which shares space with Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. FOXA and Time Warner Inc. TWX, has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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