Imax CEO Says “I Will Feel A Lot Better” If Strike Settles By Thanksgiving, But It Only Needs One Film At A Time
deadline.comImax CEO Rich Gelfond predicts the long SAG-AFTRA strike will settle relatively soon. If, instead, it drags on, theater chains will face a rocky second half of 2024 but he sees the large-format exhibitor standing apart. “An exhibitor who programs a multiplex needs lots of movies,” he told Wall Streeters after Imax reported a record third quarter. “All Imax needs is one blockbuster, one concert film, or one streaming film” at a time.
So “I feel better about our growth prospects versus exhibition’s prospects regardless of when the strike settles.” One major release calendar shift – Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros.
moving Dune: Part Two by Denis Villeneuve from Nov. 3 to March 15 of 2024 — was a boon, he said, enabling Imax to play The Marvels and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes in the current quarter.
The schedule continues to shift, Paramount has moved Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two from next June to Memorial Day weekend 2025 and pushed A Quiet Place: Day One from March to June of next year.
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