2011 Report Card [The Wrap]: Walt Disney Pictures

Every year, The Wrap does a ‘report card’ on the box office performance of all the major Hollywood studios. Today: Walt Disney Pictures.

Grade: C+

Disney downsized the number of films it released this year by 20 percent to just 14, yet global box-office revenue wasn’t that far off from 2010 ($3.36 billion vs. $3.77 billion). The studio’s one big hit, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” was somewhat offset by the costly failure of Robert Zemeckis’s “Mars Needs Moms.”

Money quote:

With the international box office driving titles like “Pirates of the Caribbean” — the “On Stranger Tides” installment took in a whopping $802.8 million in foreign theatrical revenue — Disney’s production engine is now focused on making a limited number of titles that have global appeal across theatrical, home entertainment and merchandising channels.

“We’re banking on something consumers can enjoy on a global basis, and stories that are universally appealing to a very broad, diverse, international audience,” Disney’s distribution chief, Dave Hollis, told TheWrap.

We have been following the growth of the international marketplace ever since I started this blog as this has a direct impact on screenwriters, especially those who generate original ideas: The smart thing to do is consider ways to make your stories have “global appeal,” everything from concept to setting to cast.

For more of the article, go here.