Cinemark CEO Sean Gamble says fewer wide releases, lack of a major animated title, and some films that really broke out in 2024 made for tough comps at the box office year-on-year, but that’s about to change.
“When you look at just the scale of some of the movies that were released last year, you had some big, big overperformers in the third quarter with a Twisters and a Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, you just had a wider release slate than you had in the third quarter of this year, as well as the past couple of months,” he said on a call with analysts after Cinemark reported quarterly earnings. “But as we look ahead to November and December, the inverse is the case.
“You’ve got just a loaded slate of movies coming to wrap up the year – it’s just the way the dates got planned out – which, on paper, should far exceed last year. So we’ll see how that all continues to play out for the rest of this year.
“Probably the one, big difference year over year is we didn’t have a major animated release in the third quarter like we traditionally do,” he said. “And I think if that had been the case, people would be looking at this year much differently in many respects. One movie can make a big difference in terms of the overall perception. But, again, there’s a lot of big stuff still to come and I think the story is still to be written on how 2025 ends up.”
Year-end titles include Predator: Badlands, The Running Man, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, Wicked: For Good, Zootopia 2, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, and Avatar: Fire and Ash.
He’s upbeat about the release cadence overall with Paramount Skydance and Amazon MGM Studios both looking to ramp up. As for Apple, “it’s still not entirely clear kind of where they go,” he said, but they were thrilled with F1 and signs are positive. “We’re getting these encouraging signs from Disney, from really, from everywhere.” Alternative content is booming. He didn’t mention Netflix.
“We remain encouraged about just the overall volume of films getting back. Because even this year, for 2025 wide releases, by the way we define it, are looking to get back to about 120 or so films by the end of the year. That compares to about 130 on a pre-pandemic basis. We expect next year will be another notch … closer to the 130 — it could even get to the 130 based on how the slate ultimately plays out. So all those signs are positive.”
Theatrical windows remain contentious.
“The good news is, while there doesn’t appear to be a material impact on the week-to-week box office trajectory, when you look at films that have shorter versus longer windows. I will say, there’s some concern and some signs emerging that highly shortened windows below 30 to 45 days may be affecting overall attendance recovery and results for casual moviegoers and smaller titles. So, I think that’s the point of discussion in particular as we’re all trying to understand what’s happening with that.
“It has been clearly demonstrated that a theatrical release significantly benefits the overall performance of films and the asset value over time for those films. But a significant enough of a window is necessary in order to deliver those proceeds.” He said the company is trying to safeguard itself to be successful even with a sub-optimal situation for windows.
The nation’s third-largest chain saw revenue and profit fall for the September quarter but the top line beat forecasts and the company raised its dividend, reported market share growth and said it’s eliminated the last of its Covid-related debt. Financially, Gamble said, it’s in a solid place and is looking to grow.
“We definitely have an appetite for M&A,” said Gamble, asked about possible transactions. “We do look at a wide range of options as they come to market, and we have targets in mind.”
Deal talk in exhibition is heating up. On Tuesday, Belgian-based Kinepolis, which operates 108 cinemas worldwide, agreed to acquire U.S. movie theater chain Emagine Entertainment. Skydance is looking to divest National Amusement, the chain it inherited in its acquisition of Skydance.