Lionsgate Reassures Investors After Earnings Report
Last Wednesday, Lionsgate’s earnings reports showed, that for its fiscal fourth quarter, the company had fell short of expectations which were high after the over performance of The Hunger Games at the box office. According to Variety, because of the recent merger deal with Summit, the studio had “$38 million in transcation and purchase accounting costs” which partly led to Lionsgate stating a loss of $22.7 million dollars in comparison to a “profit of $49 million the year before.”
Now Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer has aleviated some Wall Street worries projecting “that 90% of earnings from ‘The Hunger Games’ have not yet shown up on the studio’s bottom line.” Feltheimer also told analyists during a conference call that the franchise will continue to be a steady source of profitablility for Lionsgate with the film’s release in China and the release of sequel Catching Fire, for which the studio has already sold foreign distribution rights at Cannes:
Feltheimer said production will begin in September on “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” the second film in the franchise based on author Suzanne Collins’ trilogy. He noted that Lionsgate racked up $170 million in international sales at Cannes, where it began selling foreign markets for “Catching Fire,” which will open on Nov. 22, 2013.
Patrick Wachsberger, the co-chair of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, told analysts that “Catching Fire” had done “extremely well” in Cannes. “We got the best deals,” he added.
The former Summit chief also predicted “Catching Fire” will reach $400 million in foreign B.O., based partly on the performance of the second “Twilight,” which outgrossed the first in foreign markets by 50% (the first grossed $192 million overseas and the second took in $296 million).
“Hunger Games” has grossed nearly $400 million domestically and $250 million internationally, with China opening next month.
Feltheimer also discussed further promising franchises for Lionsgate including the final Twilight, hopeful franchise-starter Ender’s Game and other teen novels in development:
“We have established ourselves as the No. 1 studio in young adult franchises,” he said during the call.
Well whatever it is, Catching Fire will do extremely well nonetheless…
This story missed all the interesting things that came out on Lionsgate’s telephone conference call on Thursday. The big headline revelation on Thursday was that the company expects an additional $1 billion in cumulative cash flow over the next three years (thanks in part to the Hunger Games and Twilight franchises, but also new franchises like Enders Game, Chaos Walking).
Other great tidbits for HG fans from the call: Rob Friedman who is co-head of the LG studio said in answer to a couple of analysts questions: “There will be a greater and more exciting production value [more money spent on special effects, sets, etc in Catching Fire as compared to HG] which is one of the reasons for the increase in production costs. As it relates to [the difficulties of filming scenes involving] water, the actual water scenes [in Catching Fire] do not involve vessels which generally are the ones that create the problems in production. The water that we are talking about in CATCHING FIRE is a much more controlled situation, so we are way on top of that.”
so i really dont understand this article. like seriously i dont get it? i mean im not stupid or anything but why even report it? the hunger games beat harry potter and twilight and they still complaining on how much they got or lost? just ridiculously confusing for me.
I’m totally confused as well. For the quarter ending March 31? Where the heck did that date come from?? So the next earnings report will be at the end of, what, June?