Sony announced its financial results for the fiscal year 2017 (ended March 31,2018) this week, revealing a full-year profit of $376 million (41.1B yen) with revenues increased 12% year-on-year for the Pictures segment. The drastic turnaround for Sony Pictures, which reported a $719 million loss in 2016, can be attributed to stellar box office performances by
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and
Spider-Man: Homecoming. This year's operating results were also absent the $962 million impairment charge recorded last year, which also helps.
"We are beginning to see the fruits of the Motion Picture group’s focus on content IP and financial discipline under the leadership of Tom Rothman, who has run the Motion Pictures business since February 2015," Sony said.
A soft-reboot/sequel to 1995's film starring Robin Williams,
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was
a surprise hit for Sony at the box office. Releasing up against
Star Wars: The Last Jedi,
Welcome to the Jungle proved to be quite the formidable foe. The film, which starred Dwayne Johnson, earned a whopping $404.2 million domestically,
surpassing Sam Raimi's Spider-Man ($403.7 million) to become Sony's highest-grossing movie domestically. Worldwide,
Welcome to the Jungle is second for Sony with a global haul of $956.1 million, trailing only
Skyfall ($1.1 billion).
Welcome to the Jungle currently sits at No. 41 on the all-time worldwide box office charts. Needless to say,
a sequel is already in the works.
Spider-Man: Homecoming also performed considerably well at the box office, finishing with a domestic run of $334.2 million - fifth highest for Sony domestically (behind the
Spider-Man trilogy and
Jumanji). Worldwide,
Homecoming was actually quite close to
Jumanji, as it pulled in a total of $880.2 million (No. 52 on the all-time charts). Sony can thank the creative geniuses over at Marvel for this one. Speaking of Marvel, you can catch Tom Holland's web-slinger in the Marvel's blockbuster
Avengers: Infinity War. And yes, a standalone sequel to
Spider-Man: Homecoming is in the works.
Sony is hoping to channel some of this Marvel success with its own standalone
Venom movie. The
first official trailer for the upcoming film starring Tom Hardy released earlier this week. The jury is still out on this one, though, and it'll be interesting to see how a film set in the
Spider-Man universe with no
Spider-Man will fare.