Tyler Perry will push Lions Gate to record revenues, but not profits

If only Tyler Perry could make two or three movies every quarter Lions Gate Entertainment might be profitable already.

Thanks to Perry, Lions Gate should post solid fourth-quarter and record year-end revenues, but it won't be enough to lift the company into the black when it announces its results Monday.

Lions Gate already warned investors and the street back in February that its losses for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2009, would be in the neighborhood of $135 million on revenues of between $1.4 billion and $1.5 billion. Last year, the company lost $74 million on revenues of $1.36 billion. The studio has said it expects to be in the black in 2010.

One person who will be particularly interested in Lions Gate's results Monday is rattle-the-cages shareholder Carl Icahn, who has threatened to wage a proxy contest for the company because he hasn't been especially happy with the way the Santa Monica-based movie and TV studio has been run. The clock is running down on when Icahn has to let the world know whether he will call a special shareholders' meeting, and he hasn't tipped his hand about which way he's leaning. 

Saving the studio from harsher numbers was the performance of Perry's "Madea Goes to Jail," which grossed $89.2 million in the studio's fourth quarter. Horror flicks "My Bloody Valentine" and "The Haunting in Connecticut" were also solid performers. Stronger-than-expected DVD sales for the theatrical disappointments "Bangkok Dangerous" and "Punisher 2" also helped.

But overall, the studio did not have a stellar year. Among the disappointments were "The Spirit," "Punisher: War Zone," "Transporter 3," "Disaster Movie" and "My Best Friend's Girl." Lions Gate's results will also be affected by severance costs related to staff cuts at the studio in its third and fourth quarters.

Earlier this week, Lions Gate sold 49% of its TV Guide Network for $123 million to One Equity Partners in an effort to boost its balance sheet. The company plans to give the channel a makeover, including a new name. Our suggestion: Tyler Perry TV.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: Tyler Perry as Madea in "Madea Goes to Jail." Credit: Alfeo Dixon / Lions Gate

Comments

[Woodrow Strode, Jr.]

Let's do a movie about Kenny Washington and Woody Strode. Who? They integrated the National Football League in 1946.