This past weekend was eagerly anticipated by both the shareholders of Disney (NYSE: DIS ) and Pixar (Nasdaq: PIXR ) ; of course, there are many who own both stocks, so it probably was doubly anticipated by not a few. The reason? The Incredibles, naturally.
The film took in a little more than $70 million over the weekend for the domestic sector. In a general sense, that's quite a strong debut, especially ahead of the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday rush, which can be like a second summertime for the theatrical exhibition business. As many media reports have stated, Pixar has once again produced a hit animated product, keeping its sterling record intact. The story of the weekend sales was rather healthy as well; according to Boxofficemojo.com, each of the three days did more than $20 million, with Saturday taking in approximately $29 million.
There's a flip side, however (as there always is). The Incredibles broke a trend for Pixar. Each successive Pixar film up to Finding Nemo demonstrated an increase in per-theater average, recorded for the opening wide-release weekend (qualifier added because a couple of the films had promotional premieres). Not this time; the per-theater average came in at a lesser amount. In fact, the last Pixar movie to be released in a similar time period, Monsters, Inc., had a per-theater average nearly 8% higher than the current cartoon, again according to Boxofficemojo.com. So even though the pilot gross for Monsters, Inc. was bested by about $8 million, the future prospects for The Incredibles were not emphatically confirmed by this parameter.
Is this so significant? I'd say it is, actually. The second weekend will certainly hammer home whether the final gross will be as spectacular as a speeding bullet -- or not.
Long-term investors in Pixar still have a good chance of doing well over the long haul, of course, but they must keep an eye on all competitors, such as Dreamworks Animation (NYSE: DWA ) , Fox (NYSE: FOX ) , and certainly Time Warner (NYSE: TWX ) , which has the upcoming animated entry, The Polar Express. Computer-animated features will be a very competitive arena for many years to come.
Well, my job is done here. I must now doff my secret identity as a contributor to the Fool and don my superhero outfit so I can save the next available damsel in distress. Be well, citizens...
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Fool contributor Steven Mallas owns shares of Disney.
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