Finding Alpha (And GDP) In The Entertainment Business

As the holiday movie season gets kicked off, another way to view movie metrics emerges. Disney's "Thor: The Dark World" has already made $109 million in its first three days at the overseas box office. This Marvel movie, and many more like it, are upcoming in the years ahead. "The massive opening of Thor lifted the studio's overall overseas grosses to $2.31 billion for the year, marking the fourth consecutive year that Disney has surpassed the $2 billion benchmark overseas. The previous record was $2.302 billion, set in 2010," writes a UK correspondent.

The movie business made a fairly recent debut in America's gross domestic product figures, helping growth trend upward. Making films or movies are now part of a 'new' investment class called "intellectual-property products." Films like Avatar, Iron Man 3 and the Hunger Games will formally bolster the U.S. economy in the future.

Annual box office revenues reached $10.6 billion in the United States/Canada in 2010. The rest of the world voraciously consumes blockbuster American films as well. The industry even created a trade surplus of $11.7 billion, more than those of the management and consulting, legal, and insurance services sectors. Read more.