'Rise of Cobra,' 'Transformers' boost Hasbro profit

By Georg Szalai

NEW YORK -- Toys tied to summer blockbusters "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" helped boost Hasbro's third-quarter profit 8.8%, beating Wall Street expectations.

But shares of the toy giant fell Monday after it reported a slight revenue decline that fell shy of estimates.

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner also said during a conference call that the firm must better manage retailers' and investors' expectations for properties tied to movie releases.

Hinting that expectations for G.I. Joe were too high, he said, "I don't think we can expect that every motion picture we put out to be 'Transformers,' and Transformers is a very rare property, and yet you can have many successful motion pictures."

Goldner emphasized that "G.I. Joe both for the studio as well as for Hasbro is a very successful launch." He also said the company is moving forward with Paramount on a "G.I. Joe" film sequel.

He didn't provide a forecast for Transformers sales, which hit $484 million in 2007 when the first film hit theaters, but he predicted G.I. Joe revenue will exceed $100 million this year, more than three times greater than last year.

Hasbro posted a quarterly profit of $150.4 million, including a hit of 3 cents a share for investments in a new kids cable network joint venture with Discovery Communications and a virtual studio, on revenue of $1.28 billion.

Revenue in Hasbro's boys' unit jumped 12%, driven by the movie properties. But that was offset by a 6% decline in the girls' unit, which includes such properties as My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake, and a 10% drop in the games and puzzles business, headlined by such titles as Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit.

Comments

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This was a great kid movie and failry fun for adults as long as you don't look at it as in anyway realistic. They could have done a better job with special effects and some of the outfits (Cobra Commander especially), but over all it is fun. Way better than the last Transformers movie if you ask me.I know there were countless flaws in realism, countless, but the one that bothered me the most was the Ice avalanche underwater. I don't know why after watching all the physical impossibilities through so many chase scenes and battles, but ICE FLOATS is pretty simple isn't? How did they screw that one up. I just couldn't get past that one. But still like I said, very fun. Now I wouldn't take a small child to this, but any kid 11-18 must have absolutely loved it and if that is who it was made for than they did a great job. (My son is 9 and he thought it was awesome. My daughter who is older liked it too.)I liked it because it brought back memories of my youth and because The Baroness was so amazing. She's one of my favorite actresses anyways so I was in heaven watching most of the movie anyway...

[Transformers : Revenge of The Fallen]

yeah..This was fantastic kid movie. My children liked this movie very much. We watched this movie last night once again and enjoyed it very much.

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Hi Guy's,
I liked it because it brought back memories of my youth and because The Baroness was so amazing. She's one of my favorite actresses anyways so I was in heaven watching most of the movie anyway.

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