Big ticket
Imax posts highest quarterly revenue,
Mississauga-based Imax Corp., operator of largescreen cinemas, reported the highest quarterly revenue in its history Thursday, fuelled by the summer blockbusters Jurassic World and Furious 7.
Second-quarter revenue jumped 35 per cent to $107.2 million (U.S.), Imax said in a statement, beating the $100.4-million average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
“Compared to the same period last year, record box office and quarterly per screen averages that we have not seen since Avatar in 2010,” Imax CEO Richard L. Gelfond said in an earnings call.
“We believe the strength of this quarter clearly demonstrates the impact that a strong slate of blockbuster films can have on Imax and the operating leverage that results,” said Gelfond, who was in Vienna for the world premiere of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation at the Vienna Opera House, which had been transformed into an Imax theatre for the event.
The company has developed a laserbased projection system and has been stepping up efforts to sell exhibitors on the technology’s brighter, crisper images.
Production and Imax DMR (digital media remastering) revenues were $36.6 million in the second quarter of 2015, compared to $24 million in the second quarter of 2014. Gross box office from DMR titles was $343 million in the second quarter of 2014, compared to $216 million in the prior-year period.
In its last earnings call in May, the company reported quarterly revenues that were up nearly 30 per cent, then credited largely to strong box office fuelled by more flexible programming, including offerings such as American Sniper, Focus, 50 Shades of Grey and screenings of HBO’s Game of Thrones, that were broader than the company’s regular titles. With files from Star staff