IMAX Corp. IMAX theaters witnessed the highest-ever opening weekend box-office collections from The Walt Disney Company’s DIS recently-released flick, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
The movie raked in nearly $30 million in the U.S. from 391 IMAX theaters. Likewise, the film garnered $18 million internationally across 276 IMAX screens which excludes China – IMAX’s biggest international market. After Star Wars, Jurassic World and Iron Man 3 managed the next-best opening weekend collecting a respective $44.1 and $28.8 million, globally.
The film has already collected $517 million during the weekend and is moving toward the $1 billion mark. We expect the craze to remain in the coming festive week as well, which will likely drive significant revenues for IMAX. Moreover, the movie is scheduled to release on Jan 9, 2016 in China which will further drive IMAX’s box-office collections.
IMAX 3D theaters are integrated with the IMAX DMR (Digital Re-mastering) technology which offers advanced sound quality, high-definition video, customized theatre geometry and advanced digital audio features, enhancing the theater experience to a large extent.
IMAX theaters witnessed huge box-office success in 2015 as well. Apart from Star Wars, Universal Pictures’ Jurassic World and Furious 7 were successful releases. Also Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron generated considerable revenues. Riding on the success of billion dollar franchisees, IMAX is poised to witness strong top-line growth in the final quarter of 2015.
IMAX’s movie business is also gearing up for a grand 2016 with some big films lined up for release like Marvel’s Civil War and X-Men: Apocalypse Now and DC Comics’ Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Recently, IMAX inked a deal with Japan's highest-grossing exhibition company, Toho Cinemas Ltd., a subsidiary of Toho Co. Ltd., for ten more IMAX theaters in the country. Notably, this recent agreement marks IMAX’s largest deal in Japan, expanding its footprint from one to 11 theaters.
We believe that the release of popular movie franchisees coupled with the opening of new screens globally will continue to drive IMAX’s revenues.
IMAX currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Other better-ranked stocks in the sector are AMC Networks Inc. AMCX and RR Media Ltd. RRM. AMC Networks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) while RR Media carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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