Imax Q1 Revenue Drops 9%, Earnings Beat Wall Street Estimates on Lift From ‘Dune 2’

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Imax fans turned up in droves to see “Dune 2” on the really big screen, helping the company top analyst earnings estimates for the first quarter of 2024.

Despite the sandworm bump, it was a tough compare with the year-ago period when Imax benefited from the blockbuster success of “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 2023 to deliver its highest-grossing Q1 to date.

Revenue in the first quarter of 2024 was $79.1 million, down 9% year over year, while net income was $3.3 million (an adjusted 15 cents per share), up 33%.

During the most recent quarter, Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part Two” became one of the Top 10 Imax releases of all time. The Denis Villeneuve-directed sci-fi epic has garnered more than $143 million at the global box office to date on Imax screens — representing 21% of the film’s total gross receipts. “Our industry-leading momentum is fueled in part by our strategic expansion of the Imax value proposition; increasingly, our technology is driving content creation as much as it is content delivery,” Imax CEO Rich Gelfond said in prepared remarks. “‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘Dune: Part Two’ and ‘Godzilla x Kong’ demonstrate that more and more of today’s commercially and critically successful blockbusters are shot with Imax cameras for the Imax platform — which drives our global box office and makes our systems even more of a ‘must have’ for global exhibitors.” The company’s global box office take of $261 million in the quarter marked Imax’s third highest grossing Q1.