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Star Wars Prequels Television

Disney Stock Skyrockets 13% Friday to New All-Time High (cnn.com) 46

CNN reports: If it wasn't abundantly clear that content is king, especially in the Covid-19 era, Disney hammered that point home Thursday when it previewed dozens of new series and movies for its Disney+ streaming service. And investors are loving it. Shares of Disney jumped 13% Friday to a new all-time high. The stock is now up more than 20% this year, an impressive feat given that the pandemic has wreaked havoc on Disney's theme park business and forced its movie studios to delay big releases in theaters.

Investors are clearly betting that the streaming strength will offset any lingering weakness in other areas of the House of Mouse empire: Disney raised its forecast for subscriber growth and is upping prices for Disney+. Wall Street analysts rushed to upgrade Disney following Thursday's event. At least 13 analysts boosted their price targets on the stock Friday morning.
While Disney initially predicted it would have 60-90 million subscribers by 2024, they're now predicting 230-260 million, CNN reported earlier this week. "The sheer scale of content announced on Thursday was a loud reminder to the rest of the streaming world that Disney+ had an amazing year, acting as a lifeboat to a company ravaged by coronavirus, and that Disney is fully committed to the future of streaming."

Besides the two new Star Wars series announced this week, Disney also announced several new series based on Marvel comic book characters:
  • "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" and "WandaVision"
  • Samuel L. Jackson (as Nick Fury) in "Secret Invasion"
  • Don Cheadle as War Machine in "Armor Wars"
  • More Marvel-based shows about Hawkeye, Moon Knight, "Ironheart" Riri Williams, She Hulk, and Ms. Marvel
  • A series of shorts titled "I Am Groot" and a "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special"

Other newly-announced Disney+ shows include:

  • A live action Pinocchio starring Tom Hanks
  • A reboot of "The Mighty Ducks" starring Emilio Estevez

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Disney Stock Skyrockets 13% Friday to New All-Time High

Comments Filter:
  • Inflation (Score:2, Informative)

    by lobiusmoop ( 305328 )

    real USA year-on-year price inflation seems to be around the 10% mark and rising [thedailymeal.com], anything lower than that is a losing bet.

    • Re:Inflation (Score:5, Informative)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Saturday December 12, 2020 @12:47PM (#60823030) Homepage Journal

      A 13% one day [cnn.com] rise is a significantly higher rate of inflation than 10% annually.

    • They measured between March 2020 and April 2020, at the start of the pandemic. Simply not enough data to extrapolate your conclusion.

    • Your link is showing the price change in food from March to May of 2020. Can you think of any reason that might not be a representative time period?

    • by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      Correct. All the money pumped into the system means 2020 dollars aren't worth what 2019 dollars were.

      Costco 28% gain for the year
      Walmart 25% gain for the year

      Netflix 54% gain for the year

      SPY 14% gain -- mostly inflation

      When you put it in perspective, only a 20% gain and you're a relative loser in comparison.

      • by Cylix ( 55374 )

        13% will not keep up with inflation by a long shot.

        Woke disney will continue to lose dollars and nearly other investment is far safer then that garbage.

        Short disney for fun and profit.

  • Or just rehashes?

  • Disney must pay (Score:5, Informative)

    by Angry Coward ( 6165972 ) on Saturday December 12, 2020 @12:47PM (#60823028)
    great the stock is up! Now when is Disney going to pay the royalties they owe? https://www.sfwa.org/2020/11/18/disney-must-pay/ [sfwa.org]
  • by ZombieCatInABox ( 5665338 ) on Saturday December 12, 2020 @01:00PM (#60823062)

    I seem to remember another "holiday special" based on a very popular franchise, several decades ago.

    We all know how that turned out.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, they made the fourth-best Star Wars film ever, and with the original cast while they were still attractive. With period-appropriate set designs and costumes.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    You don't need any new or creative ideas to make money when you can just do the same things over and over and somehow convince people the new one is better

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday December 12, 2020 @01:06PM (#60823082)

    At the end of November, Disney announced they would be casting off 32,000 employees [cnn.com], out of 232,000 total employees. Disney also warned:

    The media and entertainment giant warned that it may also be forced to scrap its dividend in the future, and reduce or not make contributions to pension and retirement medical plans. It said it could slash investment in television and film productions, and furlough or terminate even more employees.

    Which raises the question: if one month ago Disney was saying it might have to take such drastic measures as cutting pension contributions and slashing investments in its film and tv productions, as well as getting rid of more people, why would people consider this a good stock to invest in at these high prices?

    • by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Saturday December 12, 2020 @01:49PM (#60823192)

      Almost all of those laid off employees were cast members at Disneyland in California, which hasn’t been able to operate for nearly 9 months due to state regulations. This was after Disney kept those employees on the books for 6 months, paying them their full health benefits while allowing them to collect unemployment or seek employment elsewhere because Disney didn’t have any work to do.

      Once the park is allowed to reopen, Disney will both have the means to employ those people and the need to do so, so there’s no doubt that they will. On the other hand, suggesting a company is in rough shape because they chose not to keep tens of thousands of non-working employees on the books in the meantime is, frankly, idiotic. Keeping them on the books for as long as they did was a stand-up move that’s really classy, but you can’t keep paying people forever if they can’t do any work for you.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        you can't keep paying people forever if they can't do any work for you

        Ah, but you can if your stock keeps going up because, apparently, they're not doing any work for you.

        • Ah, but you can if your stock keeps going up

          All technologists should be well-versed in the fundamentals of money technology in addition to other technical proficiencies. Frankly, it's a skill you cannot be without in todays world, and will make a massive difference in the latter part of your life...

          To swing back to the topic at hand, Disney stock going up is great for Disney Shareholders. I could sell my Disney stock for more now, but that doesn't mean much to Disney itself directly... now Disney COULD is

          • Disney stock going up... doesn't mean much to Disney itself directly

            Pure unmitigated bullshit, so much so I'm not even going to bother debunking it.

            On a side note if you want to actually help the cast members laid off instead of just being angry at Disney, please donate to the cast member pantry

            Corporate America psychopathy right there again, folks. Don't hold the megacorps accountable for problems they've caused, instead try to guilt ordinary citizens into paying from their own pockets to fix said problems. The fact that people buy into this insanity boggles the mind.

            • Pure unmitigated bullshit, so much so I'm not even going to bother debunking it.

              Final proof someone is too stupid to argue on the subject. Thanks for win!

              I'll let you have the last response so you can complete your tirade of un-backed up assertions that lead the reader to assume you are desperate and have no counter-argument.

              Enjoy your life as a poor since you can't understand how money works.

      • This was after Disney kept those employees on the books for 6 months, paying them their full health benefits while allowing them to collect unemployment or seek employment elsewhere because Disney didn’t have any work to do.

        How magnanimous of King Disney to continue to pay the minimum wages of 32,000 peasants, I mean employees, while Disney's own stock price rose to a new high. Tell me, how many other megacorps have laid off tens of thousands of employees due to COVID... none? Hmmm, thought so. So why is Disney different and why do they get a pass?

        As for seeking employment elsewhere... are you fucking for real? How easy is it for a minimum-wage employee to find work in a normal economy, let alone one in the middle of a fucking

    • Aren't they getting rid of employees at their theme parks? How shrewd of them to have gotten into the video streaming business when they did, just as it was exploding in popularity. Almost like they knew what was coming.
    • Because the new series are Franchises which usually print money and strengthen their Streaming portfolio. This should offset box office decreases and keep them stable even without Theme Park revenue. IF the vaccines work as hoped there's a strong chance that Theme Parks will start opening up Mid Summer. Disney looks like they're in a position to at least maintain, if not significantly grow, over the next 1-3 years and that's what a LOT of investors want right now.
  • by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Saturday December 12, 2020 @01:15PM (#60823110) Journal

    It sounds like a combination of pummeling a dead equine, which they often did with their properties back when it was only The Disney Channel, and throwing titles up in the air to see the reaction, like fireworks over the castle.

    I doubt that all of these titles will actually make it into production.

    Of the ones that do, I expect many of them will not last any appreciable time.

    But there will probably be a few that become popular and are worth watching.

  • by nagora ( 177841 ) on Saturday December 12, 2020 @01:17PM (#60823118)

    Easy to make profit if you just steal your content, isn't it?

    https://io9.gizmodo.com/star-w... [gizmodo.com]

    Fuck Disney.

  • Say it with me

    #KillTheMouse

    (That means prison, not actual murder of actual people, you psychos!)

  • I remember Disney when...I loved as a kid the movie "The Black Hole" back in the late 1970's, but if you watch some scenes in slow-motion, wow. Disney now seems....well it's not the Disney I grew up watching in the 1980's as a teenager...such a travesty.

    • You liked Disney when you were a kid, now you are an adult, you don't. Disney makes movies for kids. Join the club, it happens to everyone.

      When/if you have kids, you may find you inexplicably like Disney again.

  • no. no, No, NO!!!

    DEAR GODDESS NO!!!!

    "Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special"

    • Argh!, traumatic memory from mid 20th century early teen years returns, no not puberty issues the Star Wars Holiday Special! Old people survived covid just to have this evil resurface....

  • We have Disney+ for the obvious kid stuff and the Mandalorian. My partner wanted to watch some college ball on Thanksgiving, so Disney encouraged the Disney+/ESPN/Hulu bundle, and it looked like a great deal. That is, until we actually went to watch the game. ESPN requires some kind of "Live TV" provider that costs about $50/month. The bundle was a worthless to us.

    I'm glad Slashdot posted this so I could remember to cancel that subscription.

    Caveat Emptor.

  • Okay, I am not the best Disney fan. However them having bought out the properties I like (Star Wars, Marvel) caused me to buy their digital Disney+ service. I was also pretty unhappy with Netflix at that time, so that helped too.

    Even though they are lousy towards writers and staff, pushed never-ending copyright extensions; yet, they seem to have a solid strategy for streaming. Having focus on a few good shows, and tying in to the big screen releases worked better than the *shotgun* strategy of Netflix.

    Like

    • It really blows my mind that their streaming strategy worked so well. I have no interest in it personally, yet they are essentially projecting all households in the US to become subscribers, and at completely price-agnostic terms. Oh well, missed that one.
  • So who's going to play her?

  • With a vaccine starting to spread, it will not be long before all Disney parks are at full operation again, and people are going to be really itching for a vacation away... Disney being a perfect choice because it presents a particularly pleasant and cheerful experience that is just the kind of thing most people need coming off 2020.

    The parks are going to make a LOT of money over the next several years.

Marvelous! The super-user's going to boot me! What a finely tuned response to the situation!

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