'Star Wars' Digital Downloads: Aren't You a Little Expensive for a 40-Year-Old Movie?
The Star Wars movies are available today for digital purchase on services like iTunes, Google Play and Amazon Instant Video for the first time. For $89.99 you can own two and a half good movies, and then hours of other stuff George Lucas also made, now featuring nine additional hours of bonus features.
That purchase price might be palatable to some fans, but seems a lot to charge as a promotional tool ahead of this December's new J.J. Abrams-directed installment in the franchise, now owned by The Walt Disney Company. Especially considering the franchise has already earned something on the order of $27 billion across its various outlets.
But most of that went directly to Lucasfilm, before Disney completed its purchase. Along with its Marvel revenues, Disney should see quite the revenue bump from the sci-fi/fantasy world this year, with The Avengers: Age of Ultron, the sequel to the third-highest grossing movie ever, opening next month, followed by Star Wars: Episode VII in November.
While there are probably some people out there who have no idea what it means to ask "who shot first?", those people are not likely to pay $90 to find out. And for those fans who do know, it seems the new digital versions still have the wrong answer.
Chart of the Day: SALT in the GOP’s Wounds
The stark and growing divide between urban/suburban and rural districts was one big story in this year’s election results, with Democrats gaining seats in the House as a result of their success in suburban areas. The GOP tax law may have helped drive that trend, Yahoo Finance’s Brian Cheung notes.
The new tax law capped the amount of state and local tax deductions Americans can claim in their federal filings at $10,000. Congressional seats for nine of the top 25 districts where residents claim those SALT deductions were held by Republicans heading into Election Day. Six of the nine flipped to the Democrats in last week’s midterms.
Chart of the Day: Big Pharma's Big Profits
Ten companies, including nine pharmaceutical giants, accounted for half of the health care industry's $50 billion in worldwide profits in the third quarter of 2018, according to an analysis by Axios’s Bob Herman. Drug companies generated 23 percent of the industry’s $636 billion in revenue — and 63 percent of the total profits. “Americans spend a lot more money on hospital and physician care than prescription drugs, but pharmaceutical companies pocket a lot more than other parts of the industry,” Herman writes.
Chart of the Day: Infrastructure Spending Over 60 Years
Federal, state and local governments spent about $441 billion on infrastructure in 2017, with the money going toward highways, mass transit and rail, aviation, water transportation, water resources and water utilities. Measured as a percentage of GDP, total spending is a bit lower than it was 50 years ago. For more details, see this new report from the Congressional Budget Office.
Number of the Day: $3.3 Billion
The GOP tax cuts have provided a significant earnings boost for the big U.S. banks so far this year. Changes in the tax code “saved the nation’s six biggest banks $3.3 billion in the third quarter alone,” according to a Bloomberg report Thursday. The data is drawn from earnings reports from Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.
Clarifying the Drop in Obamacare Premiums
We told you Thursday about the Trump administration’s announcement that average premiums for benchmark Obamacare plans will fall 1.5 percent next year, but analyst Charles Gaba says the story is a bit more complicated. According to Gaba’s calculations, average premiums for all individual health plans will rise next year by 3.1 percent.
The difference between the two figures is produced by two very different datasets. The Trump administration included only the second-lowest-cost Silver plans in 39 states in its analysis, while Gaba examined all individual plans sold in all 50 states.