Rich Gelfond: Last News

According to Imax chief executive Rich Gelfond, the box office power of Disney/Marvel’s Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings should lay to rest the question of moviegoers’ willingness to return to theaters.

Despite Disney’s experimentation with releasing movies like Black Widow and Jungle Cruise day-and-date in theaters and in the home on the PVOD tier of their streaming service Disney+ Premier, Imax CEO Rich Gelfond doesn’t believe the model will be the new normal moving forward.

Big format giant Imax reported a surge in revenue last quarter and narrower losses compared with a shuttered 2020 as CEO Rich Gelfond said a deluge of Hollywood tentpoles arriving will drive people to theaters.

Imax said Tuesday it’s named longstanding board member Darren Throop — the founder and CEO of Entertainment One — as chairman of the board.

Imax’s first-quarter results showed signs of the movie industry’s rebound from the depths of Covid-19 a year ago, and the numbers met Wall Street analysts’ expectations.

Imax CEO Rich Gelfond believes a growing consensus around the long-fraught topic of theatrical movie release windows will boost the recovery of exhibition in 2021 and beyond.

Imax CEO Rich Gelfond doesn’t see the Warner Bros.-induced sound and fury in Hollywood subsiding anytime soon as talent joins theaters to protest the studio’s 2021 theatrical windows – nor does he think Warner will stick it out for a full year.

potential coronavirus vaccine sent shares of movie theater chains soaring on Monday. For the first time in a long time, it seems, cinema owners and investors see hope for a sector that has been decimated by the public health crisis.“We have not heard good news for awhile, and this is unqualified good news,” says Rich Gelfond, CEO of Imax Entertainment.

Dade Hayes Finance EditorImax CEO Rich Gelfond rejects the popular notion that premium video on demand is the future for blockbuster movie releases.“PVOD is a failed experiment,” Gelfond said during an online appearance Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference. “The numbers haven’t worked in a pandemic, so how would they work in a non-pandemic?”Results from PVOD releases — viewership, revenue, etc.

Jill Goldsmith Co-Business EditorImax CEO Rich Gelfond anticipates streamers will become more active in exhibition as the post-COVID business shakes out and said his team is turning gray at the stress of constantly shifting release schedules — even as Deadline reports that Warner Bros. is thinking of pushing to late December.“One of the reasons the streaming companies have resisted a theatrical run is because they didn’t want to wait for a 90-day window,” Gelfond said during a BofA virtual media conference, noting that before Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman premiered on the service, Netflix had discussions with chains about releasing the film theatrically with a shorter window.

Dade Hayes Finance EditorDue to strong ties between Imax Corp. and filmmaker Christopher Nolan, a number of employees have gotten a look at his long-delayed film, Tenet, as it gets ready to finally make its commercial bow on August 26.“Several people at Imax were involved with Tenet at the post-production phase,” CEO Rich Gelfond said Tuesday during a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

Imax has named Pablo Calamera as chief technology officer and executive VP, the company announced Monday. He succeeds Brian Bonnick, who will retire after 20 years on the job.

Jill Goldsmith Imax CEO Rich Gelfond said enticing patrons away from Friday and Saturday night s is critical for the successful reopening of the exhibition business. It’s something he thinks will happen naturally in a COVID-19 environment with some help from marketing and promotion.Wall Streeters have been fretting that hard-hit theaters will have to leave money on the table by not having the capacity to handle a rush of moviegoers flocking to blockbuster films once circuits reopen with an increasingly packed release slate.