IMAX is exploring a sale and has approached entertainment companies as potential buyers, according to people familiar with the situation.
The sale process is in early stages and may not result in a deal, the people said.
IMAX’s search for a buyer comes as premium theatrical experiences are growing faster than the overall box office. Movies have grossed about $2.9 billion domestically this year, the highest total for the comparable period since before the pandemic, according to Box Office Mojo.
Premium screens including IMAX accounted for 16% of ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada through early April, compared with 13% during the same period in 2021, according to data firm EntTelligence.
IMAX, the best known of the premium cinema brands, accounted for 5.2% of domestic box office sales last year, compared with 3.2% in 2019, according to the company. It has taken big shares of hits like “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and “Project Hail Mary” that were tailored for its screens and marketed as spectacles worth seeing in the best theaters.
At an investor meeting in December, IMAX Chief Executive Rich Gelfond said his firm will be “an incredibly valuable player, either as a wholly differentiated publicly traded company or as part of a larger company.” Gelfond recently returned to work part time after taking medical leave due to a serious bout of pneumonia.
IMAX stock has risen about 40% since last summer, though it is down 7% so far this year. Its market cap is about $1.85 billion, making it a relatively small acquisition for most potential buyers.
One big question would be whether a Hollywood company that bought IMAX would favor its own movies over those from competitors. Every studio releases movies on IMAX and fights with rivals to secure the premium screens when multiple films open simultaneously.
Netflix recently announced it will release a November movie starring Brad Pitt and directed by David Fincher exclusively on IMAX screens for two weeks before it starts streaming.
Next February it’s playing the big budget literary adaptation “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” in IMAX and other theaters seven weeks before it hits the streaming service—its first full-scale theatrical release.
Oh because that’s what you totally do in this situation is sell out to a larger, more vampiric company while you take the money and run.
Like legitimately this is always the end goal, and that’s what makes the economy a casino. So many people looking to cash out at the height of a company and after let others strip the copper out of the walls since they left with all the accumulated value. They don’t give a fuck about the future, they just want to get bought out at their peak and walk away more obscenely rich than they already were.