Even With Frozen and Star Wars Marqueeing, Disney's Film Segment Still Underachieved

Disney's (NYSE: DIS) fiscal 2020 first quarter was a hotly anticipated one, as it was the first period that included results from the Disney+ streaming service. The subscriber tally was even better than many had been anticipating, with Disney+ alone amassing 26.5 million households in its first month-and-a-half in existence. Disney's total direct-to-consumer segment (also made up of Hulu and ESPN+) ended the quarter with 63.5 million subscribers worldwide, compared with just 24.2 million a year ago.

The nascent streaming division is still running at a loss (negative $693 million in Q1), leaving the company's other more mature segments to pick up the slack. And pick up the slack they did, with "studio entertainment" especially notching huge gains thanks to film releases like Frozen 2 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The numbers from Disney's theatrical features aren't telling the whole story, though. They certainly did their fair share of offsetting Disney's investments into a new business, but the movies should have performed even better.

Image source: Getty Images.

Source Fool.com