A “shame of wealth” at the box office could feed a year of $ 1.2 billion for IMAX, said CEO Rich Gelfond to CNBC on Friday.
This volume would mark the best box office route for the company, which specializes in high -resolution cameras, film formats, projectors and theaters.
“I think it’s going to be a very strong year,” Gelfond said in an interview with “Squawk on the Street” by CNBC. “The first thing that boosts that board.”
Gelfond pointed out several great success scheduled for its launch in the next 10 months, including a new “impossible mission”, a live action film “How to train its dragon”, another installment of “Jurassic Park”, a sequel to a sequel “Zootopia” and a third “Avatar” launch.
Hollywood production problems led to less theatrical releases and sales of smaller tickets in 2024, with box office receipts a 3.4% from 2023 to $ 8.74 billion. Already, the 2025 board seems more robust, with more titles and films of larger franchises.
Helping high IMAX box office targets is the Chinese title “NE ZHA 2”, which has already obtained $ 1.6 billion worldwide. It is the first film that has exceeded $ 1 billion in a single country. Gelfond said IMAX represented $ 135 million of the film’s total box office.
“We have made more box office in China in the first six weeks of this year than last year,” he said.
He added that “Ne Zha 2” is doing “about $ 100 million per day”, and that IMAX has represented about 13% of the movie box office receipts.
Disclosure: Comcast is the nbcuniversal and CNBC parent company. Nbcuniversal is the distributor of “How to train your dragon” and “Jurassic World Renaissance”.
