The movie theater industry could finally be returning to friendly shores after seven years at sea. Shares of AMC Entertainment popped more than 20% Monday after the largest US theater chain posted double-digit revenue growth for the second quarter.
CEO Adam Aron called it the box office’s biggest quarter in seven years and thinks both domestic and global movie theaters are on track to have their strongest year since before the pandemic. Blockbusters including Toy Story 5 and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie boosted results for the spring quarter as Hollywood looked ahead to more grown-up flicks.
Despite being rated R, The Odyssey garnered the year’s third-largest opening weekend take. The epic film prompted cinephiles to flock to IMAX screens, in particular, showing they will pay a premium to see 40% more of Agamemnon’s helmet plume.
Wanted: IMAX Camera Popcorn Bucket
The Odyssey is the first feature film to be shot 100% on IMAX cameras, and AMC’s marketing team leaned into it. Director Christopher Nolan proved the format was popular with the 2023 hit Oppenheimer, which grossed nearly $180 million for IMAX in the fall quarter of that year. Nolan’s championing of the format is Trojan-horsing it into the mainstream:
- In its opening weekend, The Odyssey took home nearly $30 million domestically and $52 million globally on IMAX’s ~1,900 screens, a record for the entertainment-tech company.
- The limited number of IMAX screens has created competition in Hollywood. Dune 3 and Avengers: Doomsday are slated for the same release day later this year, December 18, and Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic will have three weeks of IMAX exclusivity. Instead of backing off the winter holiday weekend, Disney announced Avengers: Doomsday will be shown on its own big-screen IMAX rival, called Infinity Vision.
Athena, WYA: Theaters are racing to add more IMAX screens, but it’s not an easy undertaking. AMC expanded its partnership with IMAX last year to add 12 new locations and upgrade 68 existing ones, IMAX’s largest deal since 2018. For the coveted 70mm experience, IMAX has said upgrading theaters is costly from a construction perspective and technologically difficult since most theaters are digital.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.thedailyupside.com ’
