Hello and welcome to another Hasbro Financial Call. Hasbro is closing out 2020 with strong revenue, and HISSTANK is here to report.
Brian Goldner, Hasbro’s chairman and CEO commented “We integrated our acquisition of eOne and while live-action TV and film production was limited, we made substantial progress developing Hasbro IP for storytelling that we believe will lead to enhanced revenues and earnings power from Hasbro brands from multiple income streams.”
” While the near-term theatrical landscape remains uncertain, we see a path to its return and the opportunities in streaming and linear, now and into the future, are clear and compelling for both viewership and merchandise. The combination of Hasbro’s portfolio and eOne’s expertise is unlocking opportunity to expand our brands and launch new ones.”
It was stated that Hasbro is looking at Theatrical Releases which will be immediately followed by Streaming. In fact, they are looking at possible shorter theatrical release windows to accommodate streaming or simultaneous windows.
“As production has returned and we managed COVID-19 protocols to safely keep them up and running, our cash spend on content across scripted and unscripted live action, animated TV, and film in 2021, is planned to be in the range of 675 million to 750 million.” said Deb Thomas, Hasbro’s Chief Financial Officer.
Mr. Goldner is very happy with Transformers: War For Cybertron. “Transformers: War For Cybertron, which is our animated series on Netflix, dedicated to more of the older kids and Fan Community. It’s driven that business in a major way with Transformers; result is quite strong, Point Of Sales good, and really linking all that to our eCom and omni-channel effort.”
On another happy note, Emerging Brand: G.I. Joe has seen growth in Q4.
“We have been building great, innovative products for Hasbro IPs like My Little Pony and Snake Eyes and we are constantly working in partnership with our studio brethren to ensure that we understand the way they want to execute their programs and frankly we’re doing the exact same thing with My Little Pony and with Snake Eyes. We want to make sure we’re maximizing the opportunity given, where we believe audiences will be at [mid 2021].”
Regarding future Hasbro projects: “We are busy developing Dungeons & Dragons across number of dimensions, we have future iterations of Transformers in number of different places, and we have new creative stewardship that will add great new storytelling in Power Rangers and several other big areas.”
Brian Golder also mentioned that eOne is working on animated TV productions based on Hasbro IPs.
You can check out the slides, attached with this news post.