News

Thunderbolts, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next tentpole, is set to land on multiplex screens in China on April 30, just ahead of the movie’s North American release on May 2.

That’s good news for Imax, as Hollywood titles are crucial to its business in China, the world’s second largest exhibition market. But amid an escalating global tariffs turmoil prompted by U.S. President Trump, Wall Street has begun to weigh the impact on Imax from a Hollywood boycott measure imposed by China.

And the consensus is the impact will be limited, especially as a diversified Imax is likely to more than cope with local language movies on its screens in China. In its recent first quarter, Imax China generated a record $167 million in box office, mostly from local language films and the Chinese animated feature Ne Zha 2 in particular.

“From a financial standpoint, restrictions placed on U.

Mark O’Meara, a Virginia-based movie theater owner, wonders and worries constantly about what exactly his customers will buy tickets to see on any given weekend. It’s not that people have fallen out of love with the big screen, he says, they’ve just gotten out of practice. In fact, in the 30-plus years O’Meara has worked in the business, he’s had a front-row seat as the audiences who habitually went to the movies turned to streaming services instead.

“I’ll see people at the grocery store, and they’ll tell me, ‘You have nothing we want to see.’ I don’t blame them on certain weekends,” says O’Meara, who operates two venues in Fairfax County. “Nobody denies they consume content. That’s never been the issue. We’re competing with the convenience of the couch. Good movies sell no matter what the hell is going on.

It's been an interesting year at the box office, with some genuine highs for studios like Disney (which massively struggled last year) and films like Wicked and Moana 2, which led a record-breaking Thanksgiving box office. Artificially, it may seem like theaters finally rebounded from their post-covid slump. The numbers,...

Is “Red One,” Dwayne Johnson’s Yuletide action extravaganza with a gargantuan $250 million budget, a sign of where the movie business is headed or a relic from its free-spending, streaming wars past?

After the movie opened last weekend in the U.S. to a less-than-festive $32 million (revised downward from an estimated $34 million on Sunday), folks close to Amazon, the e-retailer turned aspiring media giant, insisted the movie was successful. It didn’t matter that it would take a Christmas miracle for “Red One” to ever get out of the red during its theatrical run. And who cares that “Joker: Folie à Deux” was declared a folie à dud when the Warner Bros. sequel opened to $38 million a few weeks prior, despite costing $50 million less than “Red One.” The idea was that all of the attention surrounding the movie’s big-screen release would ensure that a vast audience tunes in when...

Exclusive: Before filming got underway last month on action film The Beast, Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger) came aboard as director, taking over from the previously announced James Madigan (The Meg second unit director).

The team is halfway through an eight-week shoot in Madrid and Spain’s Canary Islands. As we previously revealed, Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction), Joel Kinnaman (Suicide Squad) and Guy Burnet (Oppenheimer) are starring.

The project had been due to start in early September but was pushed back a little due to LED stages needing further tech prep, we’re told. No reason was given for Madigan’s exit.

The film’s title refers to a presidential limousine nicknamed “The Beast” by the Secret Service. In the movie, when a militia of unidentified hostiles coordinates a coup against the U.S., the president (Jackson) uncovers the extent of The Beast’s highly classified offensive capabilities.

Keith Kjarval (Tin Soldier...

Historically, Netflix has typically been the biggest bidder in the room, ready to throw down some serious cash to acquire whichever project they have in their sights, but that could be changing. According to Variety, Netflix offered Emerald Fennell (Saltburn) a whopping $150 million for her upcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights, but she turned it down.

Instead, Fennell took a $80 million offer from Warner Bros., which reportedly “shocked” Netflix as they “had outbid [every other studio] for so long.” The reason comes down to Fennell wanting a theatrical release for the film, which Warner Bros. fully supports, promising a wide release and a full marketing campaign. “Netflix has the biggest number of subscribers and scale, so they can afford to play the game that they’re playing,” said Eric Handler, an analyst at Roth Capital Partners. “But there’s a growing contingent of directors and movie stars who are saying,...

It turns out money can’t buy everything.

Take the case of the red-hot “Wuthering Heights” package. The Emerald Fennell-directed film, which will star Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, sparked a bidding war, with Netflix’s $150 million offer dwarfing Warner Bros.’ $80 million bid. For the past decade, agents have advised their clients to take the loot. But in a sign of the turning tide, the “Wuthering Heights” filmmakers, led by producer Robbie, opted for Warners film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy’s pitch for a wide theatrical release and a full marketing campaign.

One top agent says Netflix was “shocked” by the outcome “because obviously they had outbid [every other studio] for so long,” and had been used to winning these contests. Even more surprising: Netflix may not have even finished the heat in second. Amazon is believed to have done so, having promised Fennell a major theatrical push. (Netflix and Amazon declined comment.

Paramount’s latest Transformers movie, an animated prequel called Transformers One, has struggled at the box office despite positive reviews. The film debuted with $24.6 million in its first weekend, below projections of $30-35 million.

Instead, another animated movie called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice topped the box office with $25.9 million in its third week. Industry insiders are surprised by Transformers One’s weak opening as it has a 98% score from audiences and stellar reviews from critics.

The film explores the origins of Optimus Prime and Megatron on their home planet of Cybertron. Josh Cooley directed the $75 million film, which uses animation to depict Cybertron more affordably than live-action. Voices include Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry.

While reviews praised Transformers One, box office data show some potential issues. Only 24% of its audience was aged 18-24, key for past Transformers films, compared to 40% for last year’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Paul Dergarabedian of...

Behind the scenes, filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller weren’t the happiest of campers when their critical darling Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse opened to $35 million domestically in early December 2018. After all, the CGI-animated film had earned effusive reviews and a coveted A+ CinemaScore from audiences, with many predicting a $40 million opening or more.

Their angst turned out to be for naught. Thanks to exceptional word of mouth — the most precious of commodities to Hollywood marketers — the PG pic took off. Embraced by both families and fanboys, the Sony film topped out at $190 million domestically, an unheard of multiple. Expanding its marquee superhero franchise to include both an animated film series and a live-action stable of films was an IP coup, since it meant being able to grow the kid and family side of the aisle.

Paramount had much the same intention when making Transformers One, the latest installment in...

Regal Cinemas, the second-largest movie theater chain in the U.S., has secured $250 million to give its locations an upgrade, the exhibitor said on Tuesday.

The raise is intended to boost its already existing locations (425 theaters across the country) with enhancements like luxury recliners and other amenities. Regal is owned by embattled theater giant Cineworld, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2022 and emerged from its financial restructuring process last year.

“Regal has been executing on its business plan with results through the first quarter that exceeded our expectations providing one of the strongest balance sheets in the business,” stated Regal chief financial officer Thomas Song. “As we invest in providing the best moviegoing experience, our customers will enjoy in-theatre improvements coupled with a very compelling movie slate through the end of the year.”

Song, who joined Regal in March as part of a slew of executive appointments for Cineworld post-bankruptcy,...

Cinemark stock has risen after a double-upgrade from Roth Mkm analyst Eric Handler that cited strong Hollywood box office expectations and debt reduction options.

Shares in Cinemark rose by 62 cents, or just over 3 percent, to $20.20 in pre-market trading on Monday after Handler upgraded his stock rating to buy from neutral and increased his price target to $26 from $19.

After Pixar’s Inside Out 2 continued to impress with its second weekend cinema ticket sales of $100 million domestically, the Roth Mkm analyst forecast a cyclical upturn for Cinemark from improved box office coming out of the dual Hollywood strikes last year.

“We are increasingly optimistic about upcoming box office releases, especially the big ‘mega-franchises’ slated in 2025/2026. Headwinds from Hollywood’s 6-month work stoppage in 2023 that weighed on the 1H24 release slate are easing,” Handler wrote in June 24 investors note.

Domestic movie ticket sales haven’t come near to pre-covid levels in recent quarters,...

Elizabeth Olsen’s His Three Daughters, an upcoming Netflix movie, will debut in theaters for a limited two-week release before heading to the streaming platform. This has become the new trend in the film industry as theaters are now fully back in business after the pandemic.

His Three Daughters / Netflix

While streaming sites are usually more convenient, studios don’t really earn much from the viewership. This is why a new strategy has been developed, and many studios are following its success.

Elizabeth Olsen’s His Three Daughters Will Run In Theaters Before Landing On Netflix

Elizabeth Olsen is widely recognized for starring in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Wanda Maximoff. As she transitions from the superhero genre, the actress has been taking on projects with a more serious tone.

As per Netflix Tudum, His Three Daughters follows “three sisters return to their father’s home to prepare for the...

The year was predicted to look pretty bleak with a number of major tentpoles being delayed due to the dual union strikes from the Writers’ Guild and the Actors’ Guild from late last year. However, that isn’t to say that there aren’t still some big releases, as some films were still ready to go for the summer. The past few weeks have seen a steamy character drama with Challengers, an action comedy with two stars from last year’s Barbenheimer sensation with The Fall Guy, the powers of Ryan Reynolds and John Krasinski teaming up for a cutesy family film with If and a CGI-filled action epic from an established franchise with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Two of the films from these past weeks have already been made available on digital platforms — Challengers and The Fall Guy.

Both Challengers and The Fall Guy followed another...

No one could blame the box office for needing an imaginary friend right now. For the first time in more than a decade — excluding the worst period of the Covid-19 crisis — no movie opening during the first six months of the year has come close to hitting the $100 million mark in its domestic launch.

In 2023, for example, three films had accomplished this feat by the time Memorial Day rolled around, including The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which debuted to $146.3 million in April on its way to earning $1.36 billion worldwide. To date, the top opening of the year belongs to March tentpole Dune: Part Two, which started off with $82.5 million, followed by $80 million for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. In fact, it’s nearing the one-year anniversary of the last film to open to $100 million or more — Barbie, which sunnily smiled its way to a $162 million debut in the latter half of July.

Adam Aron, as always, remains unruffled by widespread talk of AMC Theatres’ financial woes.

At CinemaCon, the annual gathering of exhibitors and Hollywood studios that’s underway in Las Vegas this week, there’s loads of chatter as to the financial health and future of the world’s largest theater circuit, and whether a restructuring is in the offing. According to Aron, who sat down with The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, the answer is an emphatic “No.”

“Personally, I think it’s inconceivable that AMC would have to restructure like Regal Cinemas did and file for Chapter 11. One of the things I’m very proud of is that going into the pandemic, AMC was in very strong position. We are the biggest and best movie theater chain in the world. Somehow all of us on this planet got handed Covid as something to deal with. And the movie theater industry...

In 2020, during the peak of the entertainment industry’s love affair with streaming, a follow-up to Disney’s animated hit “Moana” was destined to become a television series for Disney+.

But like the movie’s shapeshifting demigod Maui, who traverses the seven seas with the eponymous Polynesian warrior, the project has transformed into something entirely new. In a surprise move, the follow-up to “Moana” has been retooled into a feature film, which is set to debut in theaters on Nov. 27.

It’s a boon for cinemas after last summer’s strikes forced studios to postpone plenty of blockbusters to 2025 and beyond. It also signals Disney’s renewed excitement for the big screen at a time when Hollywood has started to prefer the economics of selling movie tickets to a business model that was all about trying to steal Netflix’s thunder. “Moana 2” joins the studio’s upcoming “Alien” spinoff “Romulus” and 2022’s horror film “Barbarian,...

One out of every five moviegoers has vanished since the pandemic, according to research compiled by one Hollywood studio. Whether they’ll ever return to see a film on the big screen is anyone’s guess — and, if they do, when.

It’s an alarming stat that offers some explanation as to why the box office turned on its head in 2023, leaving the film industry bewildered and befuddled. Superhero fare — the genre that helped prop up the business for well over a decade — no longer got a free pass as megabudget pics bombed, including The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, both from DC, and Marvel Studios’ The Marvels.

“Audiences’ tastes are changing, and it feels like they want more challenging fare,” says chief Comscore box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

The existential crisis settled in for the long term when a pair of fresh, original summer movies — Barbie and...

It was another tricky year for many entertainment stocks in 2023 — from cost cuts amid a need to move toward streaming profitability, pay TV cord-cutting and advertising market pressures to the Hollywood strikes and their impact on the theatrical slate.

This year, Wall Street will keep a close eye on what kind of progress companies can make on these fronts to move past the clouds overhanging industry stocks. And observers will be curious to see if recently renewed talk of possible M&a, which has boosted some stocks, will lead to actual deals.

So where do analysts recommend putting money in the new year? Instead of touting big Hollywood stocks, many are pointing to opportunities elsewhere.

Here is The Hollywood Reporter’s look at some stocks that media and entertainment analysts have started naming as their top picks for 2024.

Steven Cahall, Wells Fargo

Pick: Walt Disney

Why: In his Dec. 20 report titled “The 2024 Oracle,...

Writers returned to work two months ago, and the SAG-AFTRA strike has been over for nearly a month. Production has restarted but won’t be back to full strength until mid-January.

But even as Hollywood tries to return to normal, dark clouds are forming on the horizon. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees contract expires on July 31, as does the Basic Crafts contract, which covers the Teamsters.

In a period of rising union militancy across industries, it’s not clear whether the Hollywood studios have achieved lasting labor peace or just a temporary truce.

“We’re going to be demanding things we believe members deserve for the work they do,” says Lindsay Dougherty, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 399. “We have to fix this stuff. Our members make Hollywood move.”

Both the studios and the below-the-line workforce — camera operators, lighting technicians, makeup artists and so on — have taken a hit...

The pressure is on for the December box office after an unusual Thanksgiving feast. An epic historical drama catering to older adults and running nearly two hours and 40 minutes fed more moviegoers than a new family offering from Disney’s animation empire, which for years dominated the November holiday. (Remember that little blockbuster called Frozen, or Frozen 2, which ranks as the top Thanksgiving opener of all time?)

Heading into Thanksgiving, Disney’s original music-infused Wish — an ode to Walt Disney’s trademark “wish upon a star” mantra — was widely expected to be the peak performer with a projected North American debut of $45 million to $50 million for the Nov. 22-26 corridor. Instead, it became the latest misfire from Hollywood’s once-invincible film empire, opening to a tepid $31.6 million.

Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French military commander, narrowly conquered Wish with a five-day launch of $32.8 million despite...

“Killers of the Flower Moon,” Apple’s first major theatrical release, has generated $120 million globally after three weekends of release.

Is that a good result for a movie backed by a streaming service? A terrible outcome for a glowingly received, $200 million crime epic directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro? Or somewhere in between? Everyone who follows the movie business has a different take, so parsing these ticket sales could take longer than the film’s daunting three-hour-and-26-minute run time.

“I don’t see how its current global box office puts it in a position to turn a profit,” says Eric Handler, a senior media and entertainment analyst at Roth Capital Partners. “It will need to drive a lot of new subscribers to Apple TV+.”

If a traditional studio released “Killers of the Flower Moon,” it would be branded a flop. And Scorsese’s...

Marvel Studios has been facing a crisis with a fall in fortunes since Avengers: Endgame, and the release of too much content may have led to superhero fatigue. The company has been dealing with internal problems, including discontent among VFX artists and the need for improved working conditions. The success or failure of Marvel Studios may depend on the actors they choose. Certain actors, such as Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Majors, have allegedly caused complications for the studio.

Marvel Studios is not going thorough its best moment. Avengers: Endgame, the highest point the MCU reached with the construction of its universe and the culmination of the Infinity Saga, not only marked a new beginning for the franchise, but also the starting point of a fall in the fortunes of the superhero saga.

When Iron Man was released in 2008, no one imagined that more than 15 years later, Marvel Studios and its...

This past September, a group of Marvel creatives, including studio chief Kevin Feige, assembled in Palm Springs for the studio’s annual retreat. Most years, the vibe would have been confident — even cocky — given how the premier superhero brand, owned by Disney since 2009, has remade the entertainment business in its image.

But this occasion was angst-ridden — everyone at Marvel was reeling from a series of disappointments on-screen, a legal scandal involving one of its biggest stars and questions about the viability of the studio’s ambitious strategy to extend the brand beyond movies into streaming. The most pressing issue to be discussed at the retreat was what to do about Jonathan Majors, the actor who had been poised to carry the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but instead is headed to a high-profile trial in New York later this month on domestic violence charges. The actor insists he is the victim,...

In addition to the chaos of the strikes, Hollywood is facing a moment of reckoning after some of the costliest franchise installments in history were washed out to sea at the 2023 summer box office, while such original fare as Barbie and Oppenheimer created a surprise cultural tsunami.

A box office aficionado would have to go back years, if not decades, to find another summer where two of the five top-grossing movies in North America were fresh and original nonfranchise tentpoles. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie tops the 2023 season with a current domestic haul north of $600 million and more than $1.38 billion worldwide. The movie has shattered numerous records, including becoming the top-grossing movie in Warner Bros.’ history after passing up the final Harry Potter pic, not adjusted for inflation. And over Labor Day weekend, Barbie became the biggest film of the year to date at the global box office after eclipsing spring blockbuster The Super Mario Bros.

In September 2018, newly installed Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz revamped the toy company’s Hollywood aspirations and launched a films division with plans to bring its toy franchises to the big screen in licensing and partnerships with studios after options had lapsed on big titles, including a Sony Pictures adaptation of Barbie with Anne Hathaway attached to star.

A year later, its rival, Hasbro, set its sights beyond licensing its big franchises (Dungeons and Dragons, Transformers, G.I. Joe): It wanted to become Marvel Studios and produce its own films, too. So Hasbro snapped up producer Entertainment One for $3.8 billion in August 2019 to cement those ambitions.

Fast-forward to this year and the diverging paths — Should you build and buy or license content? Do you go all in or let partners play a bigger role? — have played out for the toy companies, with Hasbro changing course toward Mattel’s playbook of licensing...

Wall Street analysts have given a thumbs-up to Imax’s $124 million planned deal to take full control of its Chinese unit.

Imax had unveiled the transaction to acquire the remaining 28.5 percent stake in its Shanghai-based subsidiary, or around 96.3 million shares currently trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, on Wednesday. The company currently has about 770 branded commercial locations in the country, the most of any market worldwide and a key component of its expansion outside of North America.

Wall Street experts told investors that Imax’s attempt to highlight the value of its China business via a separate stock listing in the market has failed to play out as hoped. The decision to buy in the unit via a deal for full control therefore makes sense, but also comes with various positives, they argued.

Roth Mkm analyst Eric Handler, who has a “buy” rating and $26 stock price target on Imax,...

By late April, all indications pointed to The Flash opening to $100 million or more domestically. That’s when Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav took the stage at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, triumphantly telling theater owners it was the best superhero pic he’s ever seen.

The powerful executive could have easily kept a poker face and distanced himself from The Flash considering it was made by the previous regime. Instead, Zaslav bet on it as if it were his own. That included arranging for Tom Cruise — who was still basking in the afterglow of Top Gun: Maverick — to watch the movie, with his positive reaction becoming a talking point on the press tour. Zaslav’s newly installed DC Studios co-chief and top lieutenant James Gunn also trumpeted The Flash, although he tempered his remarks, saying in January it is “probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.” Whatever the wording,...

Jeff Logan is feeling relieved.

For the first time since Covid shuttered movie theaters, business is booming, with audiences flocking to see “John Wick: Chapter 4,” “Scream VI” and, just last weekend, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” And Logan, who owns Logan Luxury Theatres in rural South Dakota, is back in the black after enduring two years where profits vanished while studios failed to furnish enough big movies to play.

“It’s nice,” he says. “We don’t have to reassure our bankers every time we meet for coffee.”

Logan’s theaters aren’t the only ones experiencing a dramatic change of fortunes. Overall, the domestic box office stands at $2.3 billion, up 36.8% from the same period last year and an astounding 589.5% improvement over 2021, according to Comscore. The exhibition industry is finally looking like its pre-pandemic self again. That’s partly attributable to studios releasing new installments of successful franchises, but...

After a disappointing late summer and fall, major movie theater chains pinned hopes on a run of tentpoles that could help prop up the box office — and their bottom lines — from Black Adam to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of Water. But, one by one, in reporting fourth-quarter earnings in February and early March, the top chains all posted revenue that fell short of even the comparable quarter in 2021, when the industry was in the thick of the pandemic.

While the impact of The Way of Water, the $2.2 billion grosser that opened Dec. 16, won’t be fully felt until exhibitors report first-quarter results in the spring, the fourth-quarter numbers aren’t encouraging. That’s especially so when studio executives, from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav to Paramount Global chief Bob Bakish, have touted the important flywheel effect of launching their tentpoles in theaters instead of sending...

Elijah Wood is not a fan.

Shortly after AMC Theatres announced that it would be charging moviegoers more money for a better view of the screen, the “Lord of the Rings” star unloaded on the cinema chain. “The movie theater is and always has been a sacred democratic space for all,” Wood wrote on Twitter. “This new initiative by AMC Theatres would essentially penalize people for lower income and reward for higher income.”

But whether or not movie theaters have historically lived up to the kind of lofty egalitarian ideal Wood espoused, the fact remains that in recent years, the hard-hit exhibition industry has been experimenting with different types of ticket prices as a way to reinvigorate sales. And no company in the sector has been more aggressive with trying new strategies to revive its balance sheet in the wake of Covid than AMC.

In 2022, for instance, AMC charged 1 to...

In a rare if not unprecedented move, theater chains across the U.S. and Canada lowered the cost of admission for a new Hollywood release, the octogenarian sports comedy 80 for Brady, in partnership with Paramount. That included AMC Theatres, the largest circuit in North America and the world. For years, some distribution executives have argued in favor of variable pricing, whereby tickets are lowered depending upon a movie’s target audience. In this case, Paramount presented evidence showing that older demos are more sensitive about ticket prices.

But no sooner had 80 for Brady opened over the Feb. 4-6 weekend to a pleasing 12.7 million then did AMC reveal Feb. 7 that it is implementing a hefty 1 and 2 price increase for many seats in the middle and even upper sections of the auditorium, according to a review of various seat maps by The Hollywood Reporter. The new “Sightline” program borrows from the concert,...

The ups and downs at the 2022 box office were certainly dramatic.

Recovery from the Covid-19 crisis was in full swing during the summer, only to crash in the fall and early winter. There were high hopes for the year-end holidays, but the merriment didn’t quite materialize outside of 20th Century’s Avatar: The Way of Water and Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, both from the Disney empire. Throughout the pandemic era, such films have fared the best because they appeal to a broad swath of people, including those between the ages of 18 and 34, who were the most likely to return to the cinema.

Families and older adults have come out of the pandemic more discerning in terms of how they spend their leisure time — and money. Kid-friendly animated films, once a bankable staple for Hollywood, continued to face headwinds in 2022. And the marketplace for adult-skewing titles remained uneven at best.

Click here to read the full article.

James Cameron is known for defying the odds. Over the past 25 years, he has proven his naysayers wrong twice when Avatar, and a decade earlier, Titanic, became the top-grossing films of all time at the worldwide box office.

Now comes along the long-awaited sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, which opened notably behind tracking projections over the Dec. 16-18 frame, collecting an estimated 134 million in domestic ticket sales. Heading into the weekend, various services and major exhibitors predicted the big-budget sequel would open in the 150 million-175 million range domestically and serve as a rescue operation after a brutal fall for moviegoing.

Overseas, the movie debuted to 307.6 million for a global start of 435 million, one of the best showings of the pandemic era. One downer: the movie opened to a muted 57.1 million in China, where a new Covid-19 crisis is unfolding.

The big question...

Click here to read the full article.

Disney knew it was in trouble before Strange World hit theaters. Tracking showed the movie, an original sci-fi adventure tale, opening to no more than 30 million over the five-day Thanksgiving holiday corridor, a miserable start. From there, things only got worse. Word-of-mouth was so bad that the movie’s five-day domestic opening came in at 18.9 million, meaning the film could ultimately lose 100 million or more for the studio.

Strange World’s abysmal start is another moment of reckoning for Disney’s animation empire, which has endured tough times of late. In past years, Disney Animation’s Thanksgiving offerings have provided a hearty feast. Even amid the ongoing pandemic, Encanto opened to 40.1 million over the five-day corridor in 2021. And in 2019, Frozen II earned a 125 million, a Thanksgiving record.

While Strange World received solid reviews — its current Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score is a fresh 74 percent...

Click here to read the full article.

Talk about a whodunit.

Rian Johnson’s sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was the most popular new film opening at the otherwise troubled Thanksgiving box office — at least for adults — but Netflix brass would only allow the sequel to be booked in fewer than 700 North American theaters for one week. (Ted Sarandos has made it clear he’s focused on Netflix subscribers, not theatrical.)

The streamer doesn’t report box office grosses, but veteran Hollywood studio executives who are in close touch with theater owners believe Glass Onion earned between 12.7 million and 13 million domestically over the five-day holiday (Wednesday to Sunday). That’s better than any other film besides Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (64 million) and Disney Animation’s Strange World (a flop at 18.6 million). To put things in perspective, Steven Spielberg’s Oscar contenderThe Fabelmans posted a five-day Thanksgiving gross of 3.1 million from 638 theaters.

Click here to read the full article.

In December 2019, Hasbro, home to G.I. Joe, Transformers and Dungeons & Dragons brands, closed a 3.8 billion deal for Entertainment One, a producer with a 6,500 title library and popular cartoons like Peppa Pig and Pj Masks.

The toymaker soon regretted the move, and this past May — when Hasbro was fending off a proxy battle from activist investor Alta Fox, which tried to get it to spin off its games division — called the timing on the studio buy “unfortunate,” indicating it overspent.

Now Hasbro is unloading eOne, disclosing Nov. 17 it hired bankers to explore a sale of the studio but keep IP like Peppa Pig. That’s a nod to investors who have urged the company to sell part of all of eOne to reinvest in fewer, more profitable properties, and to do so with outside partners to reduce costs and risk. Wall Street analysts applauded the move.

Click here to read the full article.

Imax, having just unveiled its third quarter earnings, saw its stock price jump on Friday as investors look to the film technology company as possibly better-placed than its exhibition partners to benefit from a continued Hollywood box office recovery.

“We view Imax as the best way to play the upcoming theatrical rebound, the best positioned to gain from consumers’ ongoing shift toward premium theatrical amenities, a solid way to position for a rebound in the Chinese economy, and over the longer-term, the best positioned to gain from theatrical alternative content,” Wedbush analysts Alicia Reese and Michael Pachter said in a Nov. 11 investors note that gave an “outperform” rating to Imax along with a 20 price target.

Shares in Imax climbed by 68 cents, or five percent, to 14.44 on Friday as of 11:30 am Pst. Wall Street bulls are betting on more near-term lift for Imax...

Click here to read the full article.

Entertainment One owner Hasbro has stumbled with its third quarter earnings as the toy maker drives towards becoming a digital gaming powerhouse.

Hasbro saw net earnings fall 49 percent to 129.2 million, against a year-earlier 253.2 million, and the adjusted earnings per share line came in at 1.42, compared to 1.96 in the same period of fiscal 2021.

That fell short of a 1.52 expected per-share earnings estimate from Refinitiv. Hasbro matched Wall Street projections for overall third quarter revenues at 1.68 billion.

The entertainment segment at Hasbro, which includes eOne, saw revenues fall 34 percent to 211.6 million, compared to a year-earlier 327.1 million. Film and TV revenue slid 26 percent to 188.6 million as Hasbro pointed to unfavorable comparisons to year-earlier streaming releases of the films Come from Away and Finch.

The latest financial results come amid a focus by Hasbro on fewer, bigger brands and accelerated profitability as the toy maker drives towards becoming a digital gaming powerhouse.

Fox Business reporter Charlie Gasparino, who has been in a heated Twitter war for nearly two years with AMC Entertainment investors, just won a major battle.

The former Wall Street Journal and veteran television journalist has been warning the movie theater chain’s executive suite is leading the company into a disaster. AMC’s latest move — a plan announced Monday to flood the market with 425 million new Preferred Equity Units — only bolsters Gasparino’s argument that common shareholders were about to get walloped.

His opponents are the Apes — retail investor fanboys who keep blindly beating their chests that the company’s stock is “going to the moon.” They typically uses a rocket ship emoji to signal that the stock, which closed at 7.67 on Wednesday, can someday maybe reach its all-time high of 77 in June 2021 at the peak of the meme-stock surge. AMC’s shares and APEs now trade for a combined 11. Even combined,...

Click here to read the full article.

“We are not an exhibitor.” That’s been Imax CEO Richard Gelfond‘s pitch to Wall Street as the exec aims to differentiate the giant-screen company from more volatile rivals like theater giants AMC and Cineworld. And, on Sept. 22, Imax unveiled a 21 million acquisition of a streaming video tech firm, Ssimwave, that would be surprising if Gelfond hadn’t already been telegraphing his ambitions.

Ssimwave, a startup run by CEO Dr. Abdul Rehman, uses machine learning to allow clients — including Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery — to offer high video quality for viewing on multiple devices. The start-up’s tech aims to allow streaming players to deliver a better customer experience by reducing content delivery issues like quality drop-offs, screen audio and video out of synch and uneven color contrasts and depth. The buy looks to bolster Imax’s efforts to broaden its...

Click here to read the full article.

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing Sept. 7 from Cineworld, the world’s second-largest movie theater company and owner of Regal Cinemas in the U.S., didn’t come as a surprise to close observers. For many of its Hollywood studio partners, it was almost a relief. “Look back to the late ’90s, early 2000s,” Mkm Partners analyst Eric Handler says. “History has shown us it is unwise for theater operators to over-leverage their balance sheets. In a mature industry, it leaves companies in a precarious position in the event of a shock.” In this case, that shock was the Covid-19 pandemic.

While the box office made a notable recovery this summer — although not to pre-pandemic levels — the debt-laden Moshe “Mooky” Greidinger-run Cineworld, which operates 747 sites and 9,139 screens in 10 countries, warned Aug. 17 that it was struggling to get through the summer doldrums for Hollywood tentpoles amid a dearth of new releases.

Widespread optimism months ago that domestic box office might readily return to pre-Covid levels has given way to a new sense of pragmatism about the movie business.

This year’s tally will far surpass last year’s 4.5 billion haul, but it will certainly fall billions short of 2019’s 11.4 billion in receipts, and all bets are off for 2023. Given the uncertainty, Wall Street analysts and media executives are sharpening their pencils and revising the books. Their general sentiment is that there is still money to be made — particularly on the studio side — but that old methods will no longer suffice.

Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Tony Vinciquerra was asked at this week’s Bank of America investor conference if he thought the box office would eventually get back to pre-pandemic levels. “I hope it does,” he said. “I believe it will get close.” Despite the domestic struggles, he noted, “the rest of...

Click here to read the full article.

After a strong summer box office run, theater chains have been girding themselves for a slowdown this fall amid a lack of studio tentpoles. And the disclosure that debt-laden Regal owner Cineworld is beginning Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings has ricocheted across the global theatrical industry.

“Imax has a longstanding, great partnership with them,” said Imax CFO Natasha Fernandes at the Bank of America Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference on Wednesday, when asked about Cineworld’s bankruptcy proceedings. The exec added: “We have a strong liquidity position and a flexible business model, so we can kind of maneuver and navigate changes in the exhibition landscape from that point of view.”

In August, Imax said that it inked an expanded deal with Cineworld to open or upgrade 52 of its systems in Cineworld locations by 2026. (In total, Imax operates 1,600-plus screens globally, with 773 in China and 363 in the United States.

Click here to read the full article.

In late April of this year, a glowing Jamie Lee Curtis took the stage at the Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to applaud theater owners and trumpet the unparalleled experience of seeing a movie in cinemas with other people, an experience she plugged for her upcoming movie, Halloween Ends.

“When you scream, you scream louder when people are near you. When you feel something, you feel deeper when other people are right next to you,” Curtis said. “You don’t get that experience with movies in your living room. You get it in movie theaters.”

Flash-forward to Aug. 23 when Curtis made the surprise announcement on social media that Halloween Ends will open simultaneously in theaters and on Peacock on Oct. 14.

While theater owners were surprised by the decision, according to several sources, most chains are expected to play the high-profile...

Since the pandemic, it’s been feast or famine at the box office. And after dining out in spectacular fashion for much of the summer, movie theaters are bracing for a starvation diet this fall.

With a series of question marks on the calendar through the remainder of the year, there’s at least one movie that exhibitors expect to triumph. The bad news? It’s coming to Netflix.

The highly anticipated “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” will debut Dec. 23 on the streaming service, as well as “in select theaters on a to-be-announced date,” Netflix reported on Monday.

But, much to the chagrin of movie theater operators, the film is not expected to secure a significant theatrical rollout, at least not the kind that would have greeted the sequel to director Rian Johnson’s 2019 sleeper hit “Knives Out,” had Lionsgate been distributing the starry murder mystery. Lionsgate and Media...

Cineworld,, staggering under heavy debt and facing a dip in box office revenue this quarter, asserted Friday that it’s business as usual for the giant movie chain while it explores options.

The statement follows a report today that the U.K parent of Regal Cinemas is preparing to file for bankruptcy. Cineworld presaged a potential Chapter 11 earlier this week when it noted “active discussions with various stakeholders” as it evaluates “various strategic options to both obtain additional liquidity and potentially restructure its balance sheet through a comprehensive deleveraging transaction.”

“All of our Cineworld and Regal theatres are open for business as usual, and we continue to welcome our guests and members to our cinemas globally,” Cineworld added today.

“As we announced earlier this week, we are proactively evaluating strategic options to ensure we have the balance sheet strength and flexibility to adapt to market conditions, and that process remains ongoing.

Click here to read the full article.

Movie theater giants may be on top of the world right now … but they are also staring off a cliff. It’s been a blockbuster few months for, well, blockbusters, and films like Top Gun: Maverick and Minions: The Rise of Gru proved that groups that may have been wary of returning to theaters (older moviegoers and young families) are willing to go back for the right film.

And yet, there’s a sense of foreboding in the air, as theater chains like AMC, Cinemark and Marcus Corp. reconcile great first-half momentum with what is shaping up to be a momentum-stopping second half of the year.

B. Riley analyst Eric Wold writes that after the release of Thor: Love and Thunder, the only Q3 films with box office potential are the Brad Pitt-starring Bullet Train (which is not based on any existing...

Click here to read the full article.

After nearly two years of halting gains, major theater chains are finally starting to see a box office recovery as the summer blockbuster season gets into full swing. But an accelerated recovery in grosses is happening amid concerns of a broader economic downturn, leading to questions on Wall Street about how quickly exhibitors can bounce back.

Ahead of second-quarter earnings season, B. Riley Securities analyst Eric Wold has cut his 2022 and 2023 domestic box office revenue projections “to provide a more realistic recovery ramp and some additional conservatism built into our models.” Wold cited “a domestic box office performance during the first half of the year that was lower than we originally projected, with our estimates for the second quarter being reduced accordingly.”

Wold reiterated his “buy” ratings on the stocks of exhibition companies Cinemark Holdings, Imax Corp. and The Marcus Corp. though, while...

Click here to read the full article.

For the first time since the pandemic began, revenue at the domestic box office almost crossed 1 billion in June as some semblance of normalcy returned to the multiplex. Hollywood studios released a small army of event titles that found their audiences, but executives remain anxious about a gap in the calendar once the summer crush is over.

The last time combined ticket sales hit 1 billion in any given month was December 2019, when revenue climbed to 1.16 billion. Final figures show June 2022 revenue coming in at nearly 986 million, according to Comscore. That number received a last-minute boost thanks to Minions: The Rise of Gru, which pulled in a huge 10.8 million in Thursday afternoon previews on the last day of the month before opening to record-breaking numbers over the July 4rh weekend.

In all, June was up a staggering 141 percent from June 2021’s 409.2 million, but down 11.6 percent from June 2019’s 1.114 billion.

Movie theaters have benefited from a pair of unlikely heroes.

Once written off as also-rans in the battle for ticket buyers, Sony and Paramount have been flexing their muscles at the box office lately with a wide range of offerings. The two studios are responsible for seven of the 10 highest-grossing films of 2022 and currently represent more than 46 of all domestic revenues, according to Comscore. This is a marked turnaround from a year ago: At this point in 2021, Paramount and Sony represented roughly 5 of domestic revenues.

Analysts say that Paramount and Sony have been adept at scheduling their movies as the business recovers from Covid-19. With rivals such as Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal choosing to hold off many of their major tentpoles until summer or the holiday season, the two studios pushed many of their top titles to the first half of the year. Sony’s blockbuster success with “Spider-Man: No Way Home...