China’s blockbuster smash “Ne Zha 2” helped to boost profits and revenues at Imax during the first quarter of 2025.
The big screen company logged $86.7 million for the three-month period ending in March, up 10% from the $79.1 million reported in the same quarter a year ago. Those revenues were above Wall Street’s projection of $84.23 million. Imax’s net income was $8.2 million, an improvement of 52% from Q1 in 2024. Meanwhile, adjusted earnings-per-share came to 13 cents, down 13% from the per-share loss of 15 cents in the same year-ago period.
Imax’s box office tally stood at $298 million (an increase of 12% year-over-year) thanks in large part to the animated “Ne Zha 2,” which became a phenomenon over the Chinese New Year and ended its big screen run as the company’s highest grossing film in history with $161 million. Imax has also continued to expand its footprint with signings for 95 new and upgraded Imax systems worldwide (compared to eight in the same quarter last year), as well as 21 installation systems (up 40% year-over-year).
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“Imax is off to an excellent start in 2025 — the fundamentals of our business have never been stronger, with record global box office and strong system sales and installations growth in the first quarter,” said the company’s CEO Rich Gelfond in a statement. “With a remarkable global slate scheduled over the next several years and surging demand among exhibitors, we believe we are entering a new era of growth for the company.”
After a glacial start to the year, the overall box office is slowly regaining strength as new releases “A Minecraft Movie” and Ryan Coogler’s vampire thriller “Sinners” bring in big crowds. “Sinners,” as well as upcoming releases like “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and “F1,” were filmed with Imax cameras, which has traditionally boosted ticket sales at the company’s premium locations. With an assist from those blockbuster hopefuls and others, Imax expects to deliver a record box office of more than $1.2 billion globally in 2025.
“As we look ahead,” Gelfond added, “Imax is uniquely positioned to benefit from a confluence of positive trends in global content — the highly promising Hollywood slate and the rapid rise in big budget, high production value local language blockbusters.”