DreamWorks Animation announced on Tuesday that it earned 12 cents per share on $154.5 million revenue, beating analysts’ predictions who had said the company would earn 2 cents per share on $143.9 million in the third quarter. However, the results were less than the 2012 numbers: Last year, DreamWorks Animation posted 26 cents per share on $213.4 million in revenue.
Ironically, it was last year’s underperforming holiday movie Rise of the Guardians that helped the third-quarter results. The movie’s sale to worldwide pay TV was responsible for $42.4 million in the revenues. Although the studio’s summer movie Turbo is performing relatively well abroad, its worldwide box office of $246.2 million to date, has been categorized as a disappointment.
The feature films segment contributed $120.7 million in revenue and $55.4 million in gross profit. Library titles, Rise of the Guardians, Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted combined with Puss In Boots contributed heavily to the film segment, followed by Turbo and The Croods.
DreamWorks has also created new reporting segments for its financial results; offering four separate categories (feature films, television series and specials, consumer products and other).
The TV series and specials segment contributed $18.2 million in revenue and $4.2 million in gross profit primarily from Classic Media content and from DreamWorks Dragons: Riders of the Berk on Cartoon Network. Meanwhile consumer products brought in $12 million in revenue and $3 million gross profit, mostly related to Turbo and Classic Media. Other items consisted mainly of AwesomenessTV, contributed $3.6 million in revenue.
Company CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told analysts that the studio’s summer 2014 feature How to Train Your Dragon 2, is poised to perform quite well next year. Unlike this past summer, the movie has no competition from Pixar, Sony Pictures Animation, Blue Sky Studios or Illumination Entertainment. He pointed out that the summer schedule has “virtually cleared the way” for the second chapter of the studio’s popular trilogy.
