LOS ANGELES (Bloomberg) — Walt Disney Co. said fourth-quarter profit doubled on the box-office success of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel and “Cars”.Net income rose to $782 million, or 36 cents a share, from $379 million, or 19 cents, a year ago, Burbank, California-based Disney said in a statement. Sales climbed 14 percent to $8.78 billion, exceeding analysts’ estimates.

The film unit posted profit of $214 million, buoyed by the success of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” which earned more than $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. Chief executive officer Robert Iger, a former ABC executive, also boasts three of the five top-rated television shows and Monday Night Football on ESPN.

“They beat estimates basically because of the studio,” said Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Michael Nathanson, the top-rated media analyst by Institutional Investor. “The bulk of the upside came from the hardest line to forecast, which are the films.”

The shares fell 2.4 percent in after-hours trading after Disney executives said on a conference call that capital spending and tax expenses will increase in fiscal 2007.

Shares of Disney fell 80 cents to $32.70 in extended trading, after reaching a five-year high earlier. They rose 48 cents to $33.58 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.