Imax Corporation has reported the best first quarter box office in its history with $282.2m and its highest grossing quarter for local language films.
Powered by Avatar: The Way Of Water, the quarter beat the company’s previous best effort in 2016 by more than $10m. James Cameron’s tentpole has generated $255m on Imax, making it the company’s highest grossing first-run release of all time.
Creed III has become the highest grossing sports film of all time on Imax with an $18.2m and counting box office (it opens in Japan at the end of April), while Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania and John Wick: Chapter 4 were also cited as strong performers, among others.
Turning to local box office Imax reported $86.3m in the first quarter, which accounted for 31% of the company’s global box office in the period.
A $61.3m Chinese New Year box office haul set a record for local language box office in China’s peak cinema-going period. China Film Group’s The Wandering Earth 2 stands as Imax’s highest grossing local language film of all time on $52.9m
Initially released in Japan in November, Toho’s Suzume has become the company’s second highest grossing Japanese local language film of all time on $12.9m while Yash Raj Films’ Pathaan delivered Imax’s biggest global opening weekend of all time for an Indian film on $3.6m.
Imax said it expects to programme 30 to 40 local language titles in 2023.
“The first quarter is an excellent indicator of the promise we see in 2023 – a year in which we expect to return to our record-breaking levels of box office from 2019,” said Imax CEO Rich Gelfond. “Our best ever box office for the quarter demonstrates that IMAX is wholly unique in its ability to capitalize on both Hollywood and local language box office, and our diversifying content portfolio remains a key, successful pillar of our global growth strategy.”
Coming up are Universal’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Disney/Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and French local language film The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan.
Imax reported Q4 2022 earnings in February when it emerged $98m in revenues for the period fell 10% against Q4 2021. The company expressed confidence it would return to $1.1bn pre-pandemic level in 2023.
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