Imax CEO says ‘I’ll feel a lot better’ when Thanksgiving strike subsides, but it’s only taking one movie at a time

Imax CEO Rich Gelfond expects the long SAG-AFTRA strike to end relatively soon. However, if things continue like this, the cinema chains will face a difficult second half of 2024, but he sees a differentiation from the large format provider.

“A cinema operator programming a multiplex needs a lot of films,” he told Wall Streeters after Imax reported a record third-quarter profit. “All Imax needs is one box office, one concert film or one streaming film at a time.” “So I have a better sense of our growth outlook than the stock market outlook, regardless of when the strike ends.”

A major shift in the release calendar: Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros Dune: Part Two by Denis Villeneuve from November 3 to March 15, 2024 – it was a blessing to have Imax play, he said The wonders And The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in the current quarter.

The schedule keeps changing, Paramount has moved Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning part two from next June until Memorial Day weekend 2025 and rescheduled A Quiet Place: Day One from March to June next year. And Deadline exclusively reported earlier this month that Marvel Studios’ Deadpool 3 won’t have its May 3 theatrical release in early summer.

SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP are meeting today to end the more than 100 day work stoppage.

“There are not a lot of outstanding issues, so you would think they would be resolved in a relatively short period of time. But there are so many emotions involved in these things, and when emotions collide with the real world, it’s very difficult to make concrete predictions.

“As for the impact on 2024, it depends on when it is established. If there is no solution within six months, we will have a problem in 2024 because many of the films scheduled for the second half of 2024 have not finished shooting,” he said. “If things go better in the next few months before Thanksgiving, I’ll feel a lot better.”

Imax sales recently surged more than 50% in the third quarter, led by Oppenheimer, more local language films, concert films and live events as the company diversifies its content offering. The remastered Talking Heads concert film from 1984 Stop making sense premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was the biggest live event ever. It then played exclusively in Imax theaters for a week after Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour and Beyonce’s film on December 1st Renaissance World travel.

Some streamers are launching in theaters, and Imax accounted for more than 14% of the domestic opening gross of the just-released Apple version. Flower Moon Killer.

The other half of Imax’s activity consists of new installations. The company has generated 120 registrations for new and improved Imax systems worldwide so far this year, including last week’s deal with Hengdian Films in China for 20 new theaters – its biggest deal in four years. Gelfond told Deadline that he will travel to Australia today to reopen the world’s largest Imax theater in Sydney.

Imax shares opened strongly today, but are now down about 3%. Gelfond has been on a crusade to attract investors and boost its share price.

During the call, he encouraged Wall Streeters to “just sit down with a pen” and calculate the Imax numbers. “There are many advantages there.”