Richard Gelfond’s compensation as the CEO of Imax came to $8.03 million in 2022, according to a regulatory filing received on Friday. That’s down just 11.5% from his payout of $9.08 million from 2021.
However, Gelfond’s core annual salary of $1.2 million was unchanged at least through 2020, with no bonus received last year. The change in compensation comes from stock awards. He received $5.5 million in options in 2022 versus $5.9 million in 2021 as part of a three-year performance period. His contract currently extends through 2025. He was given $1.25 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation as opposed to $1.9 million in 2021.
The April 14 SEC filing noted that Megan Colligan, who will soon step down as president of Imax Entertainment, earned $3.47 million in 2022 versus $4 million in 2022. Natasha Fernandes, who became Imax CFO last May, earned $1.22 million in her first year with the company.
While the COVID pandemic impacted the entire theatrical industry worldwide, Imax was and remains in a unique position to weather the storm.
They were beneficiaries when China began playing Imax-friendly new releases like “The Eight Hundred” in the summer of 2020. An overall slow-roll return to the multiplexes in 2021 benefited the kind of big-budget tentpoles like “Godzilla Vs. Kong,” “F9,” “No Time to Die” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” that are tailor-made for Imax and related PLF auditoriums. As Gelfond noted during the 2021 Cinemacon presentation, shorter theatrical windows may play to Imax’s benefit, as studios will be more focused on event-izing their tentpole releases with the goal of making more money that much faster.
Likewise, the big releases last year, think “The Batman,” “Jurassic World Dominion,” “Black Panther Wakanda Forever” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” are exactly the kind of splashy franchise titles that tend to over-index in large-format auditoriums. That is expected to continue as the summer season begins next month, with “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” followed by “Fast X,” “The Flash,” “Oppenheimer” and “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I” among others.
The SEC filing noted that “Avatar: The Way of Water” has earned $250 million in Imax theaters alone, making it their biggest first-run grosser in company history.
