Summer 2012 was an epic season for superhero movies. Both The Avengers and the third in the Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, were released, going head-to-head in box offices across the globe. The Avengers was a non-stop, high-octane adventure telling the story of how S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) must lead a team of superheroes to defeat the evil brother of Thor, Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston. Meanwhile, The Dark Knight Rises saw Batman (Christian Bale) return after an eight-year hiatus to join Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) in a battle against Bane, an evil terrorist played by Tom Hardy. This film was released by Time Warner, while the name behind The Avengers was the Marvel studio for Disney.
As soon as it was released in May 2012, The Avengers began breaking records. The movie, which was created on a budget of $220 million, took a staggering $623,357,910 in gross domestic box office sales. Globally, it took $1.52 billion. These figures secured The Avengers fourth place in all-time box office rankings. A few months later, in July 2012, The Dark Knight Rises took its turn and Time Warner watched on anxiously. At $250 million, its budget was higher than that of The Avengers, yet it failed to exceed that film’s astronomical box office success, although it still achieved $1.08 billion in gross total box office sales.
Australian box offices did nothing to buck this trend: The Avengers took $54.4 million, a significantly higher amount than The Dark Knight Rises’ $44.1 million. However, The Dark Knight Rises’ Director, Christopher Nolan had no reason for despair as his film was by almost any standards, a complete success. Indeed, it was only the thirteenth film ever to exceed the golden $1 billion mark, which is astounding – this also makes The Avengers success of surpassing $1.5 billion even more incredible.
So that’s how the films did, but what about the studios who made them? How were their figures impacted by the superheroes they sent out to storm the world’s cinemas? Experts in the market forces influencing studios’ share prices, like those at IG, know that the success or otherwise of individual films can seriously impact overall studio fortunes.
In 2012, Disney enjoyed record profits, in part due to The Avengers, which is still the biggest film the studio has ever made. In the seven days after the film was released, Disney saw its share price rise by 3.4%, while overall share price performance went up by 31.9%. Time Warner’s seven-day share price by contrast dropped by 0.9%, not a significant amount but certainly not good news. Its share price performance rose by a comparable number to that of Disney’s, 30.6%.
In the area of market cap there was a stark difference between the two studios, with Disney hitting $78.27 billion and Time Warner coming in at $34.5 billion. It would be impossible to argue that, when studied from a broad perspective either film was anything other than exceptionally successful. However, The Avengers is the ultimate superhero, both as a film and as an asset to its studio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=WWU57JuvPl0
Originally published December 18, 2015. Updated November 12, 2018.
