Despite a strong March at the box office highlighted by sellout screenings of “Dune: Part Two,” Imax couldn’t completely avoid the effects of a sluggish start to the 2024 box office, seeing a 9% year-over-year decline in Q1 revenue to $79 million from $86.9 million.
Here are some of the top points from the premium format company’s quarterly earnings report released before market open on Thursday.
Earnings Per Share: EPS saw an increase for Imax to 9 cents per share, beating projections from Zacks Investment Research, which also projected $75.7 million in quarterly revenue.
Net Income: $3.3 million, up 33% year-over-year from $2.5 million
Feast or Famine Box Office
In early 2023, Imax was able to benefit from the holdover success of James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” to start the year, with more support coming later on from “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” in February and “Creed III” in March. The record-setting Chinese hit “The Wandering Earth II” also became a major hit on Imax screens.
But with Hollywood’s double strike depleting the release slate for the first half of 2024, the year started on a sluggish pace that wasn’t fully broken until the release of “Dune: Part Two” on March 1. 54% of Imax’s $261 million in Q1 global box office grosses came solely from the $143 million grossed by “Dune: Part Two,” which now stands among Imax’s top 10 all-time highest grossing titles.
Summer Hopes
Despite the bumpy quarter, Imax holds a lot of optimism for Q2, and for good reason. While this summer’s box office is likely to see a significant drop from last year for the overall industry, Imax is expected to be a major ticket seller for the most highly anticipated titles of the season.
Among those titles are Universal’s “The Fall Guy,” Disney/20th Century’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” and Warner Bros./Village Roadshow’s “Furiosa,” all of which are getting heavy promotional support from Imax.
“We are fast becoming appointment viewing for the biggest cinematic events,” Imax CEO Rich Gelfond said on the company’s earnings call, pointing to Imax accounting for 5.9% of the total domestic box office in Q1.
“Our industry leading momentum is fueled in part by our strategic expansion of the Imax value proposition; increasingly, our technology is driving content creation as much as it is content delivery. ‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘Dune — Part Two,’ and ‘Godzilla x Kong’ demonstrate that more and more of today’s commercially and critically successful blockbusters are shot with Imax cameras for the Imax platform — which drives our global box office and makes our systems even more of a ‘must have’ for global exhibitors,” Gelfond added.
The CEO also maintained that despite projections and a weak start, he feels 2024 is going to be a good year. “I think when people line up this year’s content versus last year’s, it really is not a weaker year,” he said, pointing to anticipated releases like “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Despicable Me 4” and “Joker: Folie a Deux.”
To 2025 and Beyond
Gelfond also touted Imax’s continued positive outlook, noting more films are currently in production with Imax cameras than ever before, including an unprecedented number of “Filmed for Imax” releases set for 2025 — every single Imax release from May to September, including “Mission: Impossible 8,” “Superman,” the live-action “How to Train Your Dragon” and the Brad Pitt-fronted Formula 1 film, is filmed for Imax.
The CEO also confirmed that Todd Phillips’ “Joker: Folie a Deux” will be released on Imax film, just as Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” was last year. Additionally, Gelfond revealed that Ryan Coogler’s secretive new Warner Bros. film starring Michael B. Jordan and shot by Autumn Durald Arkapaw is being shot with Imax film cameras instead of digital, as is David Robert Mitchell’s “Flowervale Street” produced by J.J. Abrams.
“Imax is very well-positioned to accelerate growth and margin expansion with a promising slate for the duration of the year, 2025, and 2026, and strong sales activity across key global markets we’re targeting for expansion.”
