Imax beat Wall Street projections by a huge margin as the premium theater format company reported revenue of $98 million in its quarterly earnings Wednesday.
The revenue total is up 32% from the $74 million reported in the second quarter of 2022 and exceeded Wall Street forecasts of $88.7 million. Earnings per share of 26 cents also beat the $0.17 figure expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.
“Imax continues to be a winner in a dynamic global marketplace for entertainment, as demonstrated by our strong results in the second quarter,” CEO Rich Gelfond said in a statement. “We again proved that Imax can drive results in virtually any business environment thanks to our global scale, asset-lite model and diversified revenue mix across technology licensing and Hollywood and local language global box office.”
The earnings report comes after a quarter in which Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” became the two highest grossing animated movies in Imax history.
Combined with other summer films like Disney/Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and local language titles around the world, Imax theaters reported $268.3 million in grosses this past quarter, up 8% year-over-year despite the immense contributions of “Top Gun: Maverick” in early summer 2022.
Along with Imax’s expanding international release slate, Wall Street analysts are bullish on Imax for its increased rate of signings for new and expanded auditoriums in cinemas. The company reports that it reached deals on 84 new and expanded Imax theaters through July, nearly double the 47 deals that the company reached in all of 2022.
Imax has also seen its strong run continue this past weekend with the release of Universal’s “Oppenheimer,” which has a three-week exclusive run in Imax cinemas and accounted for 26% of the film’s $82.4 million domestic opening weekend and $35 million from Imax cinemas worldwide.
The company reports that demand for Imax screenings of “Oppenheimer,” particularly in 70mm format, remain extremely high with new screenings as early as 4 a.m. being added in some theaters.
