Walt Disney Co’s (NYSE:DIS) second-quarter earnings per share estimate have been jacked up to US$1.68 from US$1.57 due to the overwhelming success of "Black Panther" at the box office, according to a note by Alexia Quadrani, a widely-followed JP Morgan analyst.
The popular superhero movie has earned US$1.3bln at the box office to date, with as much as US$666mln coming in at US movie theatres and another US$635mln from theatres outside the country. Quadrani had only expected Black Panther to earn as much as US$775mln at the box office.
The outperformance of Black Panther is making up for weaker results from another Disney movie "A Wrinkle in Time." And Quadrani expects Disney’s revenues in the third quarter to stay strong, helped by Avengers: Infinity War, which is reporting strong advance sales and surpassing even those of Black Panther.
Quadrani’s full-year adjusted earnings per share for Disney have been raised to US$6.86 from US$6.77 on the back of its Hollywood hits.
In morning trade, Disney's shares were flat at US$100.62.