LOS ANGELES - The Walt Disney Co announced on Thursday that its earnings for the fiscal year ending October 2 increased by 15 percent.

The company said the rise was mainly driven by box office successes like "Toy Story 3"  and its acquisition of Marvel, a renowned character franchise company.

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"Toy Story 3" came out in mid-June and topped one billion dollars in worldwide ticket sales.

Based in Burbank near Los Angeles, Disney recently bought back control of the marketing of Marvel-made movies from Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures, starting with "The Avengers" in 2012.

"The 2010 fiscal year was a financial and strategic success for The Walt Disney Company with performance driven by great content like Toy Story 3 and the way we benefited from that content across our many businesses," said company president and CEO Robert A. Iger.

"With the acquisition of Marvel, our brand and franchise portfolio is stronger than ever and we're confident our global growth strategy positions the company well to thrive in the coming years," Iger said.

But Disney reported a slight drop in its fourth-quarter earnings, from 47 cents in 2009 to 43 cents this fall. It said nine cents of that decrease reflected an accounting change between the third and fourth quarters at its ESPN division.

Disney also said its earning were hurt by a "programming writeoff at one of our equity networks."

The company also noted that quirks in the calendar made the fiscal 2010 results include one fewer week of operations compared to fiscal 2009.