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“The Hunger Games” money-making machine continues to churn out profits for publicly traded U.S. companies.
Last month it was small cap stock Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF) reaping the benefits from “The Hunger Games’” box office success. The movie studio’s stock got a 19% bounce after “The Hunger Games” had the third-biggest opening weekend in movie history, raking in $214 million globally.
Now Scholastic Corp. (Nasdaq: SCHL) is following suit. The company published the Hunger Games books – a trilogy that includes the original and its two sequels, “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay” – and it upgraded its fiscal-year earnings guidance based on stronger-than-expected sales. The children’s book publisher bumped its second-quarter earnings expectations up from $2.60 a share to $3.40 a share.
So far the announcement hasn’t had an effect on Scholastic’s stock, with shares down 2% today. The stock rose 24% in the first three weeks of March as “Hunger Games” books went flying off the shelves with the release of the movie. Scholastic shares have since fallen back to where they were at the beginning of March, however.
Meanwhile, Lions Gate’s stock has also fallen back to earth after getting a huge bump when the movie was released. Lions Gate stock is currently trading at $12.29 per share – down from a late-March high of $15.68 per share, but still up 48% for the year.
“The Hunger Games” trilogy is a series of bestselling novels written by Suzanne Collins, aimed at young adults. The first Hunger Games movie has now done $400 million in domestic ticket sales.