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- [00:18]
A
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- [01:08]
B
Thank you, Nicole. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Live from the Compound. We have a very special guest here. I've never seen Michael. I've seen you this excited once.
- [01:16]
A
Eli.
- [01:16]
B
Eli Manning is here. But you're very, very, very excited. Today we have a very special guest. Rich Gelfond has been CEO of IMAX Corporation since April 2009 and a director since 1994 when he and Bradley Wexler acquired the company. He previously served as co CEO with Wexler from 1996 to 2009 and as co chairman from 1999 and 2009. Before Imax, Gelfand worked as an investment banker and MA attorney. That's your official intro, but I actually had something a little unofficial in mind. Are you okay with that?
- [01:56]
C
Well, you didn't mention that I'm a better quarterback than Fair.
- [02:00]
B
Fair. We did leave that out. What I wanted to say is I think you preside over a company that right now is among the most important companies in Hollywood. I know you're not literally in Hollywood, but in my opinion, you can tell me if you think I'm right or wrong. I think nothing is more important to the livelihood of the movie business than an IMAX open and everyone is now figuring it out. I think the stock price reflects that and I think the casual fan understands that. And now I'm assuming the executives all understand that he arrived at that conclusion years ago in talking about your stock. But we'd love to hear from your perspective where you think you sit.
- [02:44]
C
Well, I really appreciate you saying that. We have felt that way for a while and the reason is we, we consider ourselves very Much in the middle of the Hollywood ecosystem. And it's not just Hollywood, it's the global content ecosystem. So we're almost like a curator in a way. So if you have a big movie and you want it released in a way that it's going to turn into a blockbuster or it's going to break out, I think having an IMAX release is an integral component of that. And we have thought that and our business plan, probably since you bought the
- [03:21]
A
stock or May 14, 2024, 17 bucks a share.
- [03:25]
C
Well, it was even before that was our alliance with filmmakers, our alliance with studios. And again, it's really important to underline on a global basis. So we have 800 theaters in China. We did Nezha in China, which probably no one on this podcast has heard of, but it did $1.2 billion US a movie. If there's a big movie. We've been in the middle. And as that's happened, we've tried as a business strategy to say, how can we use our newfound position to strengthen it and to increase the value of the brand and to make us more integral to the system. And I think that's been happening, as you said in your question, I think people are waking up now and saying, wow, you really need IMAX in the middle of things. But I think we've known that for a while. And as I said, it's incredibly gratifying to see it happen.
- [04:21]
B
It feels incomplete if there's not an IMAX release concurrent with the theatrical release. It feels almost like, how did they not get IMAX screens? And the first time I really started to feel that way was reading press reports about how vociferously Tom Cruise was lobbying for more screens for the Mission Impossible 2 parter, and there were competing films coming out at the same time. And he just felt like he couldn't get enough screens. So that's when it became apparent to me Michael was talking about imax and now I feel like everybody sort of gets it.
- [04:58]
C
Well, it's nice of you to say. Competing for IMAX screens. Tom was on a mission, pun intended. It was Mission Impossible 7 and we had Dayden Oppenheimer with Chris Nolan. And it was the second week of what they moved into. They weren't there. We picked that date. And the narrative that came out of Paramount, which was distributing the film at that time, was, you guys are out of your minds. It's a biopic in black and white about a physicist.
- [05:31]
B
Why are you wasting screens on Oppenheimer?
- [05:32]
C
What, are you kidding me? And it wasn't easy to stand by our principles and say we committed to it. And, you know, Nolan's really one of few people who helped get us to where we are today. Loyalty is a big deal for us. So when we did it, we felt a lot of pressure around us, but we never flinched. And, you know, I like that even today, to stay true to our principles. So an example of something we're dealing with right now is Dune 3. Comes out around Christmas time. And we think it's going to be a very big movie. Denis Villeneuve filmed it in part with IMAX cameras. There's going to be the same amount of prints as the Odyssey. We did great on Dune 2.
- [06:17]
B
And then we saw Michael and I saw Dune 2 at Lincoln Square here in Manhattan on the 70 millimeter.
- [06:22]
A
So it took us two weeks to get tickets. And actually, I think that's about when I first pitched the stock.
- [06:26]
C
So you must have known the CEO of the company to get.
- [06:28]
B
No, now we do.
- [06:30]
A
So rich.
- [06:32]
C
So no, just to finish this point. So Avengers was supposed. Doomsday was supposed to be this summer and they had some production issues and they moved it to Christmas time, right against Dune. And of course they called and said, well, can't you do Avengers and can't you do something about Dune? And I said, we love you guys and we love to do your movie, but we have a commitment and that's the currency that we're made of. So as a result, we're missing out on Avengers, which I'm sure will be a very good movie. But we're leaning into Dune and I think we'll do really well on it.
- [07:07]
B
Disney said that they want to come out with a large format product. Do you think that's in response to not being able to get Avengers screens from you?
- [07:17]
C
Sure it is. They've said it. I mean, you know, it's been all over the media and it's called Infinity Vision. And they put the tickets on sale for Endgame and maybe Doomsday. Also they're bringing back Endgame and the first place to buy them is this thing, Infinity Vision. But Infinity Vision is a marketing technique. They're not building new theaters. They're taking existing theaters with an X in them and they're bundling them and they're calling it Infinity Vision. And they've sort of said, because we can't play IMAX again, I think consumers will figure out whether IMAX is different than that.
- [07:59]
B
And I'm not losing sleep about it.
- [08:01]
A
So you guys have had a massive impact on the box Office year to date through 24 days. Oppenheimer, which was a huge movie, obviously did $264 million. I'm guessing that's just domestic Odyssey. I'm sorry, Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer. So I'm about to compare.
- [08:16]
C
No, it didn't do 2, 264.
- [08:19]
A
So I'm talking about Oppenheimer. So through 24 days, just for comparison, the Odyssey has done $461 million.
- [08:26]
C
You talk about domestic.
- [08:27]
A
Domestic robots.
- [08:28]
C
Sorry.
- [08:29]
A
And Oppenheimer was a massive, massive hit. So you guys, because of the pre sale and the vision and Nolan filming, like, you guys, have had a massive impact on the increase of this. I saw that in 2024 that you guys were having, that people were leaning into live events. They wanted a premier luxury experience, which you guys deliver. And at $17, the stock looks super attractive. It was a. I said you guys, and I meant this respectfully. The amount of influence and brand recognition that you have compared to your market cap was a joke. I thought it was very lopsided at a billion dollars, at $3 billion. I think what Wall street is, maybe discounting is they don't like uncertainty. And even though 2026 has been a massive year for the box office, you guys can't control what movies come out in 27 and 28. And it's very much transactional. Like, if the box office softens, your results will soften. So how do we. How do you. What other levers can you pull? Is there maybe a subscription service in there? Like, how do you increase your take rate? How do we make more money?
- [09:36]
C
Well, I mean, you know, there are no businesses. I would argue that we have more visibility into the future than almost any other business. Cause if you're a car company, you have zero sales on opening day. If you're imax, we have a backlog of theaters that we're installing. We make that public. We have numbers. We give guidance on that. We also now have a tremendous backlog of films. So we have films committed to us for 28, and we probably have some for 29. I don't know. But in 28, we're doing the Beatles four movies that Sam Mendes is doing, Bond is doing.
- [10:15]
B
Oh, you guys are gonna take all four? You committed to taking all four? Cause that's a big. What studio is that?
- [10:21]
C
Sony.
- [10:22]
B
That's a big risk that people want four distinct biopic parts of a Beatles movie.
- [10:27]
C
But we figured out a way where they'll be released within a time period where we're. We're Protect, protect.
- [10:34]
B
I'm going, so.
- [10:35]
C
And I'm going, too. And then, well, you're from Long island and I am. And, you know, I begged my parents to go to Shea Stadium, but I was like 12 years old, and they said, you're not getting on the. I never forgave.
- [10:47]
B
The sound quality was terrible. You didn't miss anything. Yeah.
- [10:49]
C
Okay. Did you go?
- [10:50]
B
I wasn't born yet.
- [10:51]
C
Okay. Well, that's.
- [10:52]
B
That was their. You know, that was their last. That was the last straw. The Beatles never wanted to play live again after that.
- [10:59]
A
No.
- [10:59]
C
I didn't know that they would intentionally
- [11:01]
B
flub the lyrics or play the wrong chords just to see if they get away with it. The screaming was so intense that nobody knew the difference. And they said, from now on, we'll focus on studio albums. They never toured America again.
- [11:14]
C
I thought it was being on Long island that turned.
- [11:16]
B
Wasn't Long Island America. It wasn't Long Island.
- [11:18]
A
It was Queens.
- [11:19]
B
It was Queens.
- [11:20]
C
Yeah, it's Queens. I could sort of understand. You understand that.
- [11:23]
B
So, you know, right. If somebody's working on a blockbuster film that's not going to come out for three years, it's on your radar.
- [11:29]
C
They come to us way in advance. I'll use one example, which was last year, F1 came out with Apple, and they released it on IMAX and in theaters. And a year or more before it came out, Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer, and Joe Kosinski, the director, called me up and they said, we want to do a theatrical release, and we don't have a distributor yet, but it's important to us that we get an IMAX release slot. We want to shoot in an iMax, so could we make a commitment we IMAX to a certain date. So we went through a lot of what was entailed, had to film it in imax, and we agreed on a date. Then they went to a distributor and they eventually got Warner Brothers, but we were the first stop. And one of the things that's happened in our evolution is, is we're getting pitched now directly by filmmakers. So filmmakers you and your audience has certainly heard of come by my office. So we go see them. And they. I mean, people have won Academy Awards and say, we're thinking of doing this movie two years out. You know, would you guys sign on to that? And we ask, who's the cast and who's the director? And this and that. And we sign up. So the business, like, we are part of the green light process now. And I would say at most of the major Studios, an IMAX release is part of the green light. So when a filmmaker goes in there and says, I want to make a movie in 27, they say, I want to release it in IMAX. And we'll sit down with the studio and the filmmaker and figure out what date works and how we could pull together the most marketing around it. And. And the studios will make marketing commitments. So for the next Mission Impossible, Mission eight, we committed to right when Mission seven, after it got done playing and Paramount agreed to put up a fair amount of money, and they agreed to lean into the marketing, and Tom agreed to lean into it in certain ways. So the kind of short answer to your question is, as we become more important in the ecosystem, we become more integrated and earlier on, so we have a bigger Runway. But the second part of the answer to your question, where are you going to make more money? Is we'd never really had a merchandising effort. And this year we started. And we started small. So for Odyssey, we made popcorn buckets. I don't know if you guys have seen them or not. They look like an IMAX camera. And my team was fairly conservative. So we put 2,500 on sale and they sold in two hours. So I said, put more on sale. They said, we don't have them. They said, we don't have them. I said, put them on sale and deliver it whenever you can get them. So we sold 2,500 more in, I think it was like less than an hour. And by the end of this in China, we put like 2,500 on sale, and I think we sold them in 60 seconds. So we're selling film strips now. For the odyssey, we sold 20,000 in 90 minutes. So I think that's definitely an area where we're going to capitalize.
- [14:47]
A
You can't influence ticket prices at all, can you?
- [14:49]
C
No, but that is an example of a place where we can do better. So AMC here in New York is charging the same price for an IMAX film ticket as they are for a regular ticket.
- [15:04]
A
Doesn't make sense.
- [15:04]
C
And as a matter of fact, on Wednesdays, which is half price days, they're selling it for half price. Meanwhile, you could buy them for $1,000 on.
- [15:13]
B
Can you talk to Adam and Aaron and just say, hey, if we sell Odyssey a year in advance in an hour, why aren't these tickets $100? I asked what is his response to that?
- [15:26]
C
So he sets the price, not us, but I'm allowed to weigh in. And I've said that makes no sense. And when I have those discussions with exhibitors, they all say, that's a really good point. But, you know, there's a guy and,
- [15:40]
B
well, Live Nation is dynamic pricing. Now, Springsteen, Springsteen says whatever it's worth is what people will pay for it. And it happens.
- [15:47]
C
A guy in Las Vegas called Johnny Brendan, he has an IMAX film theater, Brendan theaters. He charges 50 bucks and he sells out. AMC is charging 14 on Wednesdays. I mean, I can't tell you why they do what they do. And I think once I told Adam, he said the problem is they're sold out for months. I can't go back and recoup that. But hopefully for Dune and other things, that is an area of opportunity. Also, I think you'll see a lot more film prints around films. So for next year, we haven't announced the names of them, but I think there's around four that are coming out on IMAX film. And we have 40 theaters now that use film. So that's a really good revenue source. You know, when this film came versus digital. Yeah, because you. Higher occupancy film is more expensive. Right.
- [16:44]
B
Okay.
- [16:44]
C
Higher ticket price, hopefully more attendance, higher utilization rates and, you know, greater buzz, greater indexing from us, which means percentage of the box office. We do a higher percentage of the box office.
- [16:59]
A
Are you at the ceiling or can you get above 20?
- [17:02]
C
26.
- [17:03]
A
26.
- [17:04]
C
Right.
- [17:04]
A
How high you think that can get? I mean, that's healthy.
- [17:06]
C
Well, there are both sides, right. It's how many screens it opens on and what are the regular theaters doing? So we've been higher. We could be higher. But when you're open in almost every screens, that's pretty high. We've done over 30 on some movies. But again, the issue is in indexing. It's how much money you make. Right. And what your margins are and all of that. So before this open, you'll like this, because what football team do you guys root for? All right, now, I could still talk to you if you said the Jets, I was going to walk out of the stadium.
- [17:38]
B
There are no jets fans.
- [17:39]
C
Yeah.
- [17:40]
B
Only victims.
- [17:41]
C
Only my brother and I hold it against him. But before this open, I got my management team together and at IMAX, we had an ultimate of 190 for the movie. That's what my film team thought it would do. And I said it would do over 300. And they said, oh, you're crazy. You're hyping us. This, that. So I went into the meeting and I said, pretend I'm the CEO and pretend I Know what I'm talking about and pretend we're gonna put a plan together of how we're gonna capitalize on that and what we're going to do with it. And they all, you know, the guy's old, he doesn't know what he's talking about. You know, we know what. So it passed. Today, it'll be close to 300, and we have $40 million in pre sales. So if we never sell another ticket, we're at 340 and we've got it playing until September. You know film theaters, you can't get a ticket at the BFI until mid September. So I was wrong. I was probably way too low.
- [18:46]
B
Do you. Do you think about the success of the Sphere as sort of a guidepost? Like, this is something that we know we're undervalued relative to a business. Like, they have one location. You guys are global. They're talking about a second location. It costs them a billion dollars to build one of those. Or maybe 2 billion.
- [19:11]
C
Or maybe 3.
- [19:12]
B
Maybe 3. You guys have a bigger brand name. I would argue you guys have the potential to do more conversions. The Sphere can't do any. So you could go into existing theaters and you could say, we're going to retrofit. I was pitching your stock to retail clients as a stockbroker in 2005. I still have my script. Everything I was pitching 21 years ago turned out to be true. But the share price really hasn't done all that much. So how do you think about. Why aren't we getting the recognition of a Sphere which became, I think, one of the hottest stocks of 2026? Arguably, more people are aware of IMAX than they are of that.
- [19:53]
C
Well, we've done brand studies with nrg and our brand is on a level of Disney and Nike and people like that. So it's not just us saying, hey, I think it's. And I agree with you, that we get very little recognition of what that brand value is in relative monetization. But that's why we're doing things like merchandising. I don't know if you saw we're doing an AV system in China with a company that's going to put it in autos, mostly driverless autos. So we were slow to it, but we are trying to monetize that where we are now in terms of the Sphere. I've been there. I think it's fantastic. Amazing, amazing. It's great technology again, though. I've heard it cost close to $3 billion. I don't know how you make money at that price. They're licensing some out now. That's probably a little bit better business model than putting all that money into each one. But personally I wouldn't own that stock. I didn't buy SpaceX. I don't put my finger in the air and say hey, this is worth $2 trillion. Not the way I invest. I like looking at earnings and cash flow. And I think we're starting to return to the world of reality now where our stock has gone up tremendously in the last since 24 when you bought it.
- [21:16]
B
It's more than you have a hot stock. That is true. And Michael was very early to it. People that listened to him made a lot of money. What are the constraints around building more of the 70 millimeter experiences? Which obviously is. I've heard you refer to as a Rolls Royce of moviegoing. I totally agree. I went to see one battle after another in Fort Lauderdale. You guys are located in like an abandoned science museum. I was saying to myself, this should be the hottest ticket in Florida. People should be lined up out the door. I was able to buy same day ticket for 70 millimeter. That same experience in New York sold out the second you put them up. I don't think people even know that that exists where it's located.
- [22:01]
C
Well, they do. We do pretty good numbers coming out of there. I don't think it was a band and maybe it was closed that day. But I will agree with you, it's
- [22:09]
B
not the hottest felt the band. I was just saying to myself, can you imagine a brand new 70 millimeter IMAX in downtown Fort Lauderdale? Forget it.
- [22:20]
C
It would be live. Well, I can imagine one in downtown LA. It's called LA Live and we converted it on January 1st this year. And the first six months it did $800,000. The first few weeks it did more than that. We put a film projector in there and it sold out for a long time. Going forward, the issue is purely economics. We with more film projectors. So one print at one theater. So think of the one that shows at 68th street here in Manhattan cost $50,000.
- [22:54]
B
The print itself.
- [22:54]
C
The print itself costs $50,000.
- [22:56]
B
And the projector is equally expensive.
- [22:58]
C
The projector's more expensive than that and they were built 50 years ago and they don't really exist. But we're always scavenging and finding more and I think there's a chance we can do that.
- [23:10]
B
But.
- [23:11]
C
But it can only be in really high traffic locations where you can amortize that cost of the print and make a return on it. So I know everybody says they want it, but the model just doesn't work where you could have a lot of.
- [23:25]
B
How many of the 70 millimeter theaters do you have in the United States right now?
- [23:29]
C
I think we have 25. Yeah, something like that. And we have 41 globally. But keep in mind that's up markedly. When we did Oppenheimer, we only had 30 theaters. We're up to 41. And we have a clever new idea which we haven't proved out yet, where we might be able to get 10 new ones.
- [23:48]
A
Okay. Could you share or no?
- [23:49]
C
No.
- [23:49]
A
All right, well, let me ask you this. What do we do when there's a lull in the box office because it's lumpy, Right. So can we do Knicks watch parties, for example, during the playoffs? Like, are there other things that you can do to get asses in the seats when the concerts, sports, all of that?
- [24:07]
C
So last year we had 120 pieces of content which included not only movies. You guys haven't talked about it, but I mentioned at the beginning foreign movies, international movies. So big business for us in anime and not just in Japan. We do it in China.
- [24:24]
A
Look at that. We're ready.
- [24:26]
B
That's.
- [24:26]
A
That's from your slide.
- [24:27]
B
These are big foreign films that you guys.
- [24:29]
A
So 24% kegger since 2019 to 2025.
- [24:33]
C
So that's a big business for us. And it's a big business, not just showing anime in Japan, but showing it worldwide. This year there's a big film coming out of India called Rahman, and I think there's a Rahman 2 coming next year. And we're going to open that on a global basis. So some of these really big ones, by the way, there's no theater chains playing them. It's out of the box. And then we've done the NBA Finals on a limited basis.
- [25:07]
A
People go for that.
- [25:08]
C
Yeah, they do go for it. We've had a lot of concerts. We did a live Stop Making Sense concert with David Byrne from the Toronto Film Festival that did really well. We've had events that we bring back movies all the time. We brought back Interstellar, and I think it did over $5 million.
- [25:29]
A
Why do you guys do more than that? Is that the studio's decision? Like if you re release Pulp Fiction or whatever? I would go.
- [25:35]
C
The issue is really marketing costs. So when a movie comes out, obviously it's on bus. What do they call it? P and A. Yeah. And there's planes flying over and all that. So if you have a limited release for one weekend, it's very expensive to market it. So you really have to do iconic titles. We've done tests with the NHL in Europe, where we played a lot of hockey games. I think some there, we showed here, some here, we showed there. We did an HBO series where we did some episodes from last year and then this year, and that did pretty well. We're experimenting with it. And we have a couple of really noteworthy projects in the Skunk Works where if you knew about them, you say, wow, that's a big deal.
- [26:24]
A
What are you doing with streamers? You guys mentioned in the Last call that you're doing something with, like, the. The. To eventize the launches.
- [26:31]
C
So I mentioned F1, where we did 100 million.
- [26:34]
B
And that was an Apple.
- [26:35]
C
That was an Apple movie, and it was the biggest Apple release ever. They did 600 million, so they recognized having an IMAX was a big thing. We do a lot with Amazon. We release a lot of their films. We did Hail Mary this year, which again, did 100 million in IMAX. Really big success.
- [26:57]
B
Great movie.
- [26:58]
C
With Netflix, we're doing the sort of sequel to Once Upon Time in Hollywood. It's directed by David Fincher, written by Tarantino, Cliff Booth, and Brad Pitt stars.
- [27:12]
B
That's gonna get an imax. That's gonna get an IMAX release between
- [27:15]
C
Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I remember Brad Pitt, you know, was the biggest movie he ever did, and he loves IMAX because we helped make that. So he's gonna promote that. And it's exclusively in imax, and then it's running afterwards. Netflix streaming. Yeah, you better go.
- [27:33]
B
We'll be there.
- [27:34]
C
It's in the sweet spot.
- [27:35]
B
We'll go to the premiere. I don't know if you're interested in having us. Can I ask. Can I ask you about.
- [27:40]
C
That's where my stock is and how much you own Fair.
- [27:44]
B
Can I ask you about some Nolan stuff?
- [27:47]
C
Sure.
- [27:47]
B
Okay. So I saw it in IMAX, but I didn't get to the 70 millimeter because those were sold out a year ago. So I saw it in, like, one of the retrofitted theaters that you guys have.
- [27:58]
C
A digital theater.
- [28:00]
B
Yes. It was amazing. It was the unbelievable experience. And I think that's a universal sentiment that you're hearing from people coming out of it. You guys worked with Chris Nolan to invent special cameras to allow him to film the entire movie with imax. You did some technological stuff where one of the constraints was that it used to be really noisy. You created something called the blimp so that the actors could look at each other and emote and not have something clicking and whirring in between them. So you went to great lengths to make this movie. You're almost like a co producer of the movie at that stage when you're getting that in that deep. What else did you learn from that experience with the Odyssey? Both the technological side of actually filming it and then the release. What do you take away from that experience that's gonna be meaningful for IMAX in the future?
- [28:55]
C
Well, the first thing is when Chris Nolan asks you to do something, you just do it. You just do it. And the camera and the blimp were just part of it. He had a list of 15 things he wanted like a parts dump all over the world. So if the projector broke, there were parts nearby. He wanted us to train projectionists. He had a lot of things to do and we did all of them. And that proved to be a really good thing. We also learned from him that, that it has a lot to do with the director leaning in. So we did Sinners with Ryan Coogler. And he did an incredible job leaning in. If you remember, he invented this little aspect ratio book which he sent all over the place. And Denis is leaning very much into Dune 3. So it's not just the technology. You need the filmmaker to say the, this is the way I made it and this is the way.
- [29:55]
B
And they're thinking about IMAX as they're like in pre production for the film. It's not a. Oh, yeah, we'll also do imax.
- [30:02]
C
Yeah. As central to the thing shots. And as they think about how it looks. And you made a very good point, which a lot of people don't know, is that, you know, part of Chris's motivation for the blimp was getting more out of the actors. Because, you know, think about the Odyssey. When Matt Damon went through the singing of the sirens, he was in the middle of a boat, in the middle of the water, strapped to it. The last thing he needed was a camera that was screeching in his face that actually might have killed him. I don't want to give away a spoiler, but he survived it worse than the sirens. So what we're doing now is we're really leaning into the economics of it to studios and filmmakers. And we're saying, you know, look how. How long the pre sales the tale was, look how long in advance. Everything sold out. Look at the legs. So you, you know, let's talk about that for a second. So Today will be around 300 million in the movie and with the 40 in backlog, and it's going to be around till September. So, you know, someone called me yesterday and said, wow, this movie could do 350. I said, why don't you get a calculator and add up the numbers? That's sort of the bottom of the range.
- [31:20]
B
Yeah.
- [31:21]
A
Do you have any thoughts on what's happening in Hollywood with Paramount and Warner? Adam Aaron just came out in favor of it, I think so did the CEO of Cinemark. Is that going to be good for the movie industry? What do we think?
- [31:38]
C
You know, the future is so uncertain in the movie industry, but the number of prognosticators is not uncertain. There are more and more every week. So remember during COVID when the prognosticators, kind of fueled by Netflix, said no one's ever going back to the theaters. Everybody's gonna sit in their living room chained to the couch with their kids screaming and eating leftovers. The prognosticators, if I could say one thing about them, they've almost always been wrong about the future of the movie business. Like when television came out at radio, that was the end of the movie business. And you could find all the research and the people who said that. I think it evolves and you just don't know where it goes. So you're right. The loss of Warner Brothers is an obvious loss on the one hand of some of the creative talent and movies. On the other hand, the introduction of all the streamers in is a source of a lot more content. And as I just told you with F1 and with hail Mary, they're both from streamers. They've been among the best content we've had. And David Ellison has promised 30 movies a year. This morning they said 45 day windows. So it was more competitive. I remember when, remember Universal had its 17 day SVOD window. There are too many pieces that evolve where I can predict and say this is good or bad, the beginning or the end. I think it's almost organic and I think it'll depend as much on the merger as the way people respond to it. So one of the settlements I read might happen is they might sell one of the lots off. So who's the buyer of the lot? What happens there? I think it's too easy to say it's bad. I think we'll see.
- [33:37]
A
The movie business, as you pointed, is incredibly hard to predict. It's like the stock market. William Goldman wrote the Adventures of Screen Trade in I think the 80s talking about how nobody knew what was going to succeed or not. Matter of fact, in the video that I made when I pitched IMAX for the first time in 2024, I said that indie movies are dead. And they were. And I said that you guys are in a unique position because movies are an event and when there's an event, people go to IMAX. Of course, in 2026, indie movies are very back, right? Like there's backrooms. Was huge. An obsession. Monster movie. One of the things that we as moviegoers lost over the last decade, which makes me very sad as a fan. Or comedies. I think comedies died for two reasons Josh and I were talking about this. One was cancel culture. And two was these movie stars were getting like apotest crew. It was just getting too expensive and the economics were upside down and people weren't going to the movies. There was that too. I saw the invite a month ago. Did you see that movie?
- [34:31]
C
I haven't.
- [34:32]
A
Amazing.
- [34:32]
C
I know about it, but I haven't seen it.
- [34:34]
A
Amazing. I knew nothing about it. And it's the hardest I've laughed in a theater in 10 years. And it was a packed audience. And there's nothing like being in a theater with other people having that belly laughter you don't get on your couch. So because movies are back and you would see this, like, can we get comedies? Can comedies make a comeback or are they just dead forever?
- [34:56]
B
Not that particular comedy, though. They never leave the apartment. I don't know if that's an imax. That's probably not an imax.
- [35:02]
A
Can comedies as a genre come back?
- [35:04]
C
So you reminded me of something when you said you made a movie. So some of our fans after Odyssey came out, went to a theater and they built a little Trojan horse on a wagon. And two of them hid in this box in the wagon. And one went in and bought a ticket and snuck the other two in. And then while they were going, the doors open and they fell out, the two guys. So the answer is the amount of creativity is so strong. I never say nothing ever about anything. I think, sure, comedies could come back and succeed. And, you know, you named one of the examples of that. And even. What's the one with Glen Powell? The rom com? He did.
- [35:47]
A
Oh, Sydney Sweeney, anyone?
- [35:49]
C
Sweeney. Yeah, there are some. Yeah, was Sydney Sweetie. Right, that one. That one came back. So I think, yeah, they'll be comedies. I'm not sure how many will be in imax because again, you've got to do big box office. And, you know, I, you know, IMAX Might make a comedy funnier. We know that it'll make a big movie.
- [36:11]
B
But they used to do box office action comedies. You guys can even. I think one thing that the prognosticators were right about. I agree with you. They're always saying, this is the end of whatever. People don't go to the movies anymore. And I think this plays into your favor, actually, they go to a movie. So I remember growing up in the 80s on Long island, and if it was raining, we would say, let's go to the movies. And you would go, and whatever was playing, you'd pick something. I don't think people think that way now. I think the way they think is I need to see that movie that is an event, to Michael's point, and I want to see it in imax. So I actually think the consumer tastes have changed and they think about movies as an event. And what better way to experience that than imax?
- [37:01]
C
Well, I mean, you're leading right into our corporate strategy is we did like a mission statement years ago, and we said, rather than people saying, let's go see that movie. We thought people should wake up and say, let's go to the imax. And I know some fans who just think whatever you're showing because of the way that it's displayed, it's gonna be a worthwhile event. My stepson is one of those. Every weekend he's going to an IMAX movie somehow. And that's kind of my dream. When they wake up, say, let's go to the imax. And I think this time with Odyssey, it's definitely playing out that way.
- [37:40]
A
Well, definitely. So I think right now, for movies to make it, there's three ingredients. One is imax. I mean, you guys are at the top of the list. Like, when you're on a movie post, you're above the director and the actors. So you're one leg of the stool. The other is the movie star. And maybe most importantly is the director. I feel like with Nolan and Denis, directors are the new movie stars. People show up to see Paul Thomas Anderson. Yeah, it's great that DiCaprio's in the movie, but they're there for the director.
- [38:06]
C
I think you're partly right. I mean, definitely with Chris and with Denis and PTA also, but he has a smaller base. You could count on one hand, you know, showing up for the director and how well they do.
- [38:20]
B
Spielberg, Scorsese. There's a list.
- [38:23]
C
Spielberg and Scorsese. But, yeah, those movies, you know, kind of cap out at a lower number So I think they'll get you something, but I think you need a really good movie. You need the star also.
- [38:35]
A
And IP.
- [38:37]
C
Yeah.
- [38:38]
A
Existence looking to 2027. Like, I think Zelda's going to be a monster.
- [38:41]
C
Yeah. I met. I forget the director's name. He's very cool. He's a great guy. That's an example. The guy called me out of the blue like about a year ago and he said it has to be an imax. And I.
- [38:55]
B
It's the Legend of Zelda, which is the Nintendo ip.
- [38:57]
C
Exactly.
- [38:58]
A
That guy did the last Planet of the Apes movie, I believe.
- [39:02]
C
Yeah, it's a great example. And, you know, that's next year. That's next year.
- [39:07]
B
What else do you have?
- [39:09]
C
We have the new.
- [39:10]
B
We have the. It'll make it easy for you.
- [39:12]
A
Thomas Crown Affair.
- [39:13]
B
This is not an imax, unfortunately.
- [39:15]
C
Thomas Crown is film Primax. There's a new Star wars. And I know you're rolling your eyes because of Mandalorian, but this one, I was on set. Ryan Gosling. It reminds me the Harrison Ford kind of Star Wars. I think it's going to be a big movie. Frozen is out next year.
- [39:32]
A
Minecraft will be big.
- [39:34]
C
And then there's the sequel to Avengers is out next Christmas at the end of next year. I think Dune's going to play into next year. Chinese New Year. This year a lot of movies weren't made. Next year a lot of movies were made. So I think we're going to do very well. It's hard for me to read that thing.
- [39:55]
A
The Mummy, Frozen three Beyond.
- [39:58]
B
So this is visibility. You don't know which of these will be the biggest.
- [40:01]
A
Oh, Shrek 5. Shrek 5 is going to be a monster.
- [40:04]
B
Yeah. You don't know which of these are the biggest hits.
- [40:07]
C
Mana tomorrow.
- [40:08]
B
But you know you're going to have product people want.
- [40:10]
C
And most of them already signed up. We know the dates. It's already dealt with. That's why I was saying in response to your question before, that it's not a predictable business. I think it's more predictable than almost any business because we know that theaters are in backlog we're installing. We know the movies that are coming out. You know, we have great visibility. We don't know the box office. But you guys will like this. It's like the market, you know, I have 120 pieces of content. If you have enough diversification, you know, you know you're going to hit on some and you're going to miss on some, but you can, you know, Last year we guided to 1.2 billion and we came in, I think around 1.3 billion. This year we guided to 1.4 and I think at the moment we're about 300 million away with seven months to go, maybe a little bit more, but we have good visibility.
- [41:05]
B
So I heard you respond to a Bloomberg reporter. Earlier this year there were rumors going around about IMAX being for sale or being acquired or whatever the case may be. And you said, if there's something to say, I'll say it. But right now there's nothing to say. I can't believe that you haven't been bought out yet. Given how long IMAX has been around, how big the brand is, the point that Michael made, the brand versus the market cap might be one of the most lopsided situations like that in the whole stock market. I know you're not gonna tell us, yes, we're selling the company, but like, you must get offers, I don't know, every week, every month, or is it not that way?
- [41:48]
C
There have been people kicking the tires over a very long period of time. And if someone puts the right number out there, like I told Bloomberg, you'll be the second stop on the tour, if you like. Okay, but we just don't talk about. I mean, the best thing that's happened to this company is that it didn't sell 10 years ago because we've said we have so much promise in it and we run it to maximize shareholder value. And if someone comes along, you know, at a blow away price, we'll talk, but we're not actively, you know, seeking out anybody.
- [42:25]
B
Okay. You're not asking people, hey, what would you pay for this? But you're listening if people come to you.
- [42:31]
C
I think I answered the question.
- [42:32]
B
Yeah. Okay, Fair. No fair. Fair enough. Understood. Would you ever get into making your own content now that you've had this taste of working directly with Nolan?
- [42:41]
C
Well, we do. I mean, as you know, we make, we used to make whale sea documentaries. Documentaries. Now we did one with Amazon, which is very interesting. We did Blue Angels with Amazon and we opened it fairly wide and then it went on the streaming service later. Then we brought it into the institutional market after that. So we make those kinds of movies. I think your question is more about commercial movies. I think you'll be very interested. It'll be very interested to see what happens with Cliff Booth, because it's being released exclusively in IMAX theatrically. So, you know, like with alternative content, I like doing things and seeing how the world reacts and then we'll see.
- [43:30]
B
Okay. Anything else?
- [43:32]
A
I'm good.
- [43:33]
D
Which.
- [43:33]
B
This has been so much fun for us. We're fascinated by the story, obviously the stock price, but more importantly, the amazing content that you guys continue to put out. We just think it's such an interesting company, such a fascinating story, and we really appreciate the chance to ask you questions about it.
- [43:53]
C
Well, thanks. It's my pleasure. There's never been a better time to talk about it. So good timing, guys.
- [44:00]
B
Thank you. I agree. Thank you so much. Thanks to everyone for watching. Thanks for listening. I guess IMAX.com for more information.
- [44:07]
C
Sure.
- [44:07]
B
All right. Go to IMAX.com to learn more and see that whole list of upcoming films and more. So thank you guys so much.
- [44:28]
D
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