Okay, great. So thank you, Rich Gelfond, CEO of IMAX, for being here. We're happy to have you back. So Rich, you've managed your business extremely well throughout all the turbulence since 2020. What does the market not understand about IMAX?
A lot, but it's getting better. So it took us a long time to convince, to explain to the market that we weren't a North American exhibitor, and the reason we're not is 'cause most of our revenues are not in North America. 2/3 of them are outside of North America, and the second is, we're not an exhibitor. We're a technology platform. So we license our technology to about 1,800 theaters in 90 countries around the world, and people pay us a license fee for doing that. So, you know, I'll address this question in different ways when we go throughout, but just to keep it brief, we don't sell concessions. We don't have leases. We don't have debt. We have none of the characteristics of a, you know, of what one would think about of an exhibition company.
We have much more of the characteristics of a technology platform, and, you know, as a result, we're an asset-light model. We performed relatively well during the pandemic. 2023, last year, when exhibition revenues were down by about 30%, we were pretty flat with 2019, our revenues, and I'll get into this later, but we also have a much more diversified kind of revenue base than an exhibitor.
So, how do you think about the positioning of IMAX, the overall landscape in a post-COVID world, where demand for premium is so great?
Yeah, I mean, I think we're positioned extremely well. I think, Jessica, you look at me and partly think I'm kidding and also partly say, "Unfortunately, you're right." But when you look at the media landscape, like, nothing is working. I mean, almost nothing is working.
Traditional media.
But what's working is theatrical. I mean, starting a few months ago, you know, theatrical's working very well. As I said, in 2023, IMAX's revenues were very similar to 2019. You know, go through, you know, Disney, by way of example, right now, I mean, you know, they're turning it around a little in streaming, but theme parks are struggling. But what's really working for them is their movie division. Movie's doing very well. And I think when you look at 2025 and 2026, and you look what's in backlog, and we'll talk-
We'll get to that.
... talk about that, it's extremely strong. So again, these mega companies coming out of it, you know, they made their bet by saying, "You know, we're gonna abandon our legacy business." Well, guess what? Their legacy business worked really well, at least the movie side of the business. And then the second part of my answer would be, premium, which you mentioned, and, you know, our market share has gone up consistently since the pandemic. It's... and it's somewhere between a third and 40% higher than it was pre-pandemic. Our percentage of the box office is constantly going up, and there's been kind of a fundamental switch in the movie business, starting a couple months ago with Inside Out, and, you know, I think there's a lot of momentum in that business.
Right. So you talked, you touched briefly on, like, what makes IMAX different from traditional theaters, but how do changes to their ecosystem potentially impact your business?
To the theaters' ecosystem?
Yeah.
So, you know, on a global basis, first of all, need to back up for a second. You know, when people think of exhibition, they think of North American exhibition, but again, as I said, two-thirds of our revenues are outside of the U.S. So exhibition is a growing business in a lot of parts of the world. In, you know, particularly the developing world and the Middle East. You know, in Saudi Arabia, there was no such thing as exhibition five years ago, and now, you know, it's a vibrant part of the economy. So, I think you really have to regionalize it. So China has 80,000 screens, which is about double the amount in the U.S., growing pretty rapidly. Middle East, growing pretty rapidly. Japan, growing.
And then Western Europe and the U.S., which are kind of more, aged infrastructures, are looking for new revenue sources. And they used to build new screens. They thought that was a good revenue source, but obviously, that's a worn narrative, and that just isn't working.
Mm.
But, putting IMAX in is a good incremental revenue source for them. So, a lot of our clients have said, "Whereas we would've built more screens, we'd rather use our capital to put in premium, specifically IMAX. It's a much better return on investment for us." So I mean, I think the pandemic obviously caused some damage to the balance sheets of some exhibitors, some places in the world. Like, Regal went bankrupt.
Right
A nd, you know, AMC is restructuring its way out. But in general, they're much healthier than they've been, and I guess the best evidence I could give is, year to date, we've signed 100 new IMAX systems, which means we've a backlog of systems that we've signed and installed, and 100 for us at, you know, this time of the year is pretty good. It's more in line with pre-pandemic kind of numbers than there were. So it, you know, it's either doing well, or it's recovering.
Right. I mean, your market share has grown, so maybe this is kind of a stupid question, but you know, The, all we hear about is how, like, pressured consumers are, particularly at the low end. So is there any concern at all the premium price for IMAX, you know, will have an impact, you know, could make it less affordable?
I mean, it's just been the opposite, not just IMAX, but the whole premium end has picked up market share over the last number of years, and I think part of that is the result of the pandemic. People, when they go out, they want something different and something special. And it's not only true in the movie business, but look at the concert business and what's happened to ticket prices for concerts. You'll look at sporting events and what's happened. You'll look at out-of-home live entertainment or recorded entertainment everywhere. And I think it's partly a reaction to the pandemic, is that people are not just gonna sit on their couches, they're gonna relish those kinds of things. And again, our kind of ticket price premium, it's about 40% or $5, so it's an affordable luxury.
So, if the economy, you know, takes a turn or, you know, almost all of our record year, I've been here a long time, so I've been here through three recessions, and each of those, you know, we did well.
Right.
Because, you know, maybe people will stop, you know, their trip to Milan, or they'll stop going to a fancy restaurant, but, you know, going out and spending $5 extra is something they could still afford.
So if we go down that path of the kind of demand for a premium experience, are there other ways to further capitalize on this premium experience or ancillary monetization strategies that you guys are thinking about?
Yeah. So I think the first monetization strategy exists within our universe, and that is, we have a lot more leverage. So if you look at next year's film slate, we have fourteen films that were shot with IMAX, that are being shot with IMAX cameras, that are gonna come out next year. So what that means is even higher market share for us, and it means even higher indexing on each movie. And these movies include the new Formula 1 movie starring Brad Pitt. They include Mission: Impossible 8. They include two really high-end Marvel movies, Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four. They include Superman. They include How to Train Your Dragon, the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. So the most we've ever had in a year is about half of that.
There's been a fundamental change in our business, and I must say, a lot of it had to do after the pandemic with premium, but it also had to do with the fact Oppenheimer and Dune were shot with IMAX cameras and shown in IMAX, and in both cases, we did 20% of the box office in the opening weeks. I think for Oppenheimer, for both, we might have done close to that for the whole run. We're in less than 1% of the screens in the world. So if you're in any business in the IMAX ecosystem, you kinda need to be in the IMAX business. So going back to what I said about leverage and emphasizing that. So if you're a studio and you wanna maximize your box office, you wanna leverage off IMAX.
If you are an exhibitor and you wanna bring in incremental revenue and a higher ticket price, you want IMAX. If you're a well-known director and you really wanna show your content in the best way possible and maximize your box office. And, you know, I didn't go through, you know, movie by movie next year, but, Formula, the Formula 1 movie is Joe Kosinski, who did Top Gun. You know, Kevin Feige is overseeing the Marvel projects, Chris McQuarrie and Tom Cruise in, in Mission. So these are top-tier directors and top-tier studios. As a matter of fact, I have a really good example of how the leverage has changed things. So Disney just released Alien: Romulus. That movie wasn't filmed with IMAX cameras, but it was shown in IMAX theaters, and Disney really leaned in to IMAX in that movie.
So literally, if you looked at the poster, you know, IMAX was this big, and Alien: Romulus was this big. I was driving in LA.
And I thought I saw an IMAX brand poster, but it turned out to be an alien. 'Cause it was blocked out, I couldn't see it. And we did almost 15% of the domestic box office opening weekend, again, on less than 1% of the screens. So all the studios are really leaning in more. So what that means is we could get better terms on marketing from the studios. You know, when we look at our long-term deals, we could get we get paid by the studio and the exhibitor. We could get a better deal on that from when we do film prints, which we're doing, and Joker, which is coming out in about a month. You know, we could get different terms in our film prints.
So throughout the ecosystem, whether it's exhibitors or studios or, or, you know, use of cameras, we have much more leverage. So that's the primary way, Jessica, that we benefit from the new world. But it's also helped us secure a lot of alternative content. So we did opening night of the Olympics with Universal NBC. We did in Taiwan and Hong Kong we did the NBA Finals, and we sold out in IMAX in that, you know, within the first hour that we put tickets on sale. We do live events around it, so we did a Stop Making Sense for the Talking Heads.
Right.
concert with a live event around it. So enables us to get a lot more content as well and on more favorable terms. So I do think there'll be material financial benefits. And then I guess I left out the most obvious one, is just the growth of the network. Since the numbers look so good for exhibitors who license our technology, you know, it acts as a catalyst for more signings.
I have, like, so many follow-up questions, so don't change the topic yet.
No way.
So I guess first, you mentioned the, you know, the NBA finals on IMAX in China, Taiwan, and other content like the Olympics and Talking Heads. So what other types of content do you think you could bring in that's not traditional films?
So the most successful content we've done so far has been foreign language content, so that's Japanese movie in Japan. As a matter of fact, this weekend in Korea, we did a Korean language music concert just in Korea, and on 18 screens we did $1.7 million, or $80,000 a screen. So I think there's no content that we can't do after our experience with Universal and the Olympics. You know, we're discussing other kinds of content with them that we can do. It's important to note, though, that from a financial point of view, that's very attractive 'cause it increases capacity utilization.
Right.
But it's never gonna be a majority of our
Right
Of our content, just like foreign language is 20%. You know, I don't know, over the years, if we were really good at it, I'd say maybe it could be another 20%. The majority is still, you know, gonna be film content. But it really opens up this capacity utilization point, and, you know, once we cover our fixed costs, everything falls to the bottom line.
Right.
Our margins are extremely high, as you know, but in really good quarters where we have a lot of capacity utilization, our gross margins are in the 40% range.
What's your average capacity utilization?
Capacity? I don't know. Do you know what it is?
I think it's in the, like, mid to high single digits on the weekends.
20% + on weekends-
On weekends
midweek.
So you still have plenty of
Oh, yeah, you know, it's sized built for the peak periods, right?
Yeah.
When a big blockbuster opens.
Yeah. So I just wanna go back to some of the stuff you were saying about IMAX cameras. I have a bunch of questions. So how do films perform if they're in IMAX theaters, if it's shot with IMAX cameras versus not? Like, is there a big difference in performance?
Usually, we do 20% more if it was filmed with IMAX cameras. There are the extreme examples, which I mentioned, Oppenheimer and Dune, which were multiples more, but on average, it's about 20% better.
Right. And then who makes the decision to shoot in IMAX? Is it the studio? Is it the director? And how do you... Like, can you influence that? 'Cause I know you have great relationships across the industry.
Yeah, it depends on the movie, so I'll give you some examples. So the Formula 1 movie, which, Jerry Bruckheimer is producing, we've done a lot of movies with him over the years, and as I said, Joe Kosinski is directing. They really wanted to do it, and, they went to Apple, which is making the movie, and said, "We really want to do it." And in this case, Apple negotiated with us before they even had a distribution partner, which is now Warner Bros. So that's an example of the talent really driving it, and Apple supporting it. You know, we have a great relationship, among others, with, with Warner, and, you know, Warner will push a lot of its talent, 'cause they know the financial implications, to use IMAX cameras.
So, Ryan Coogler is doing an IMAX film release early 2025 using our film cameras, and I believe that the idea originated with Warner, and they went to him. So it depends, but I'd say right now it's probably mostly focused around the talent. I mean, the results for Oppenheimer were so noticeable. I mean, obviously, it did close to $1 billion. You know, people thought it was nuts at the beginning, a biopic about a physicist. You know, it wasn't intuitive that it was gonna be one of the biggest movies of the year, and then he went on, obviously, he and Emma won the Academy Award for it. So, you know, in a place that's always looking for new ways to attract audiences, that's really caught the attention of a lot of talent.
So I'd say, I'd say talent's driving it now. And then you look out even to 2026 , you know, there's Avengers coming in 2026. There's a Dune project in 2026, and there's a lot of Marvel things and other things going on.
Star Wars.
Star Wars in 2026. So I think for most big projects, either the studios or the talent are looking around and investigating using IMAX technology.
So I think you said that the fourteen films that are being shot with IMAX cameras for next year.
Yes
is double what it was in the past?
T- about.
Is there room for that to even creep further, creep up further?
Yeah, it is. I mean, during a year, probably you could do 25 films if you wanted to. But I should add to that, to put it in context, Jessica, is for next year, we're completely committed from May till the end of September, so we can't do another movie next year. That's how promising the slate is.
Right. Right. Well, on that, like, what are you most excited about?
You know, it's like asking you which of your children do you like the best, and you can't, you can't politically say that. But I would say, I'm very excited about Formula 1. It stars Brad Pitt. You know, Formula 1 is a global franchise. Apple is putting a lot behind it. You know, Warner is very committed to it. That, you know, is certainly one of them. At the end of next year, there's a small film called Avatar 3, and the first two have done over $2 billion, and for IMAX, we've done around $250 million in each of those. So, you know, how could you talk about a year-
Right
without, you know, being really excited about that? And I'm excited about a lot of things, but I think I'll leave it at that, not to make-
Right.
more enemies.
Okay, and then I know you talked about your orders, but you didn't. That's different from your install guidance, right? Your install guidance, I think, went from 120 to 150. You increased the low end to 130?
Yes.
120, and that's above your 2023 level, 2023 level-
Yes
of 128. So can you talk through the drivers of that, of the install?
Sure. So, you know, our network grows every year, and that's part of the reason for the growth in the
Right
i n the, it's not just the box office. It's also a function of how many theaters you have out there. So signings are what I was saying when you said orders.
Right.
Though, you know, we, our term for it is signings. So, a signing is, so we just signed for four new theaters in Saudi Arabia. That goes into the backlog. And then the backlog is now about 500 theaters in the world, in addition to the 1,800 theaters that we have open. It takes typically about three years to run through the backlog. It runs through the backlog and gets into the P&L through an install, which means you actually go out and install that theater. The install guidance is, you know, more than it was last year, and we manage that very closely. I don't think we've ever missed it. Like, we, you know, we sharpen our pencils, and we're up on it.
I wanted to go back to something, you asked a minute ago, though, which you asked what I'm most excited about next year. I didn't get to
This
plug in for this year.
So this year, you know, is gonna be a lot better than people forecast at the beginning, and I think it's a function of the world returning to normal more quickly than I thought and most people thought. And I think it's a function of the content that's been released, mostly in the second half of this year. The first half of the year was still impacted by the strike. But tonight you have Beetlejuice opening, which I think will, especially domestically, will have a very healthy opening. And then, you know, leaving some out, you've got Joker
Right
with Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix. I'm super excited about Gladiator. Some people on my team had an early peek at some of it. It's Ridley Scott, and I just heard very good things. Then you have Wicked this year, and I left out for next year, Wicked Two. And then you've got Moana, you have Mufasa coming out. You've got Venom, you know, and this is just the last quarter plus of the year. So I think it, the. I know I've been surprised by how quickly things have come back. But when you look at 2024 and then what's already announced for 2025 and 2026, you'll have a great deal of confidence that the industry as a whole is looking pretty good.
So just on that note, because you're mentioning a lot of movies, it just when everything seemed to be coming, like, out of, like, the pandemic, you know, getting back to normal, we had those two strikes last year, and that kind of shut everything down for, I don't know, nine months or whatever it was. Is the slate at normalized levels? And if not, you know, when will it be, and has the output like, is there anything structurally different now?
Yeah, so you have to separate it out. For exhibitors, which we're not, that have multiplexes and need to show lots of movies and sell lots of popcorn, there are less releases than there used to be. And also, there are certainly less mid-level kinds of releases. You know
Right
the $50 million budget kinds of things that keep screens 15-20 full all the time. For IMAX, because we show blockbuster movies at our end of the market, and, you know, I think this is the fourth time I've said it, 2023 was already equivalent to 2019 for us. So at that end of the market, there's nothing structural. And in fact, you know, the industry has moved to more blockbusters and away from other kinds of films. And I think even the streamers like Apple and Amazon, you know, have come into that space and wanted to release movies theatrically.
We have a first, which I'll talk about here, Jess, is we've done some research, which is not fully baked, but it's mostly baked, which is, we tested how an IMAX release affects people's wanting to see it in streaming. Because let's face it, the world is looking at content differently, not just its first window, but its overall window. And we hired a prominent research firm to take posters and put IMAX on them or not on them, and then to say: "Would you be interested in seeing this in streaming?" And the numbers were crazy. I mean, that's why we're doing more testing. But it was a really significant percentage, north of, like, 60% to see the movie and 30% to see it in streaming.
Said they were more interested in seeing it just based off IMAX being in the poster. And IMAX has increasingly become kind of a curator of movies.
Right.
So people say, "Well, is it in IMAX?" If it's in IMAX, it's like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. So we'll be talking more about that. But yeah, you know, even look at the data, I don't know, we haven't talked about this much, but Top Gun was the number one theatrical movie, I think, two years ago, and it was also the number one streaming movie, and I think the same might have been true of Barbie
Right
last year. So I think, you know, a strong theatrical run, especially with the inclusion of IMAX, helps the value of the whole content chain. And going back to an earlier part of our discussion, I think it also, you know, affects where we sit in the ecosystem and the kinds of leverage we have and the kinds of commercial terms we can get.
Right. Okay, so let's switch gears and go to outside the U.S. or to China specifically, and the recent performance in China suggests there's real demand for your technology and offerings in the region, but it's a complex market. What's your view on, like, how Hollywood movies play in that region or how successful they can be?
So they used to play really well.
Right.
Then they played really poorly, and this year has been, you know, a mixed bag at best. Godzilla and Alien: Romulus last weekend, well, last couple weeks, have performed really well. As a matter of fact, we did more box office on Alien: Romulus in China than we did in North America. But, you know, it's, it's a market somewhat in transition. Before the Party Congress, China was very restrictive in terms of what types of films they would let be imported
They didn't really give good dates, and so it was very up and down. But this year it seems, you know, to have been much more consistent. So Deadpool versus Wolverine got into China, and if you had told me a movie with a hundred F-bombs is getting into China, I would have said there was a zero chance for that.
So I think they're pretty focused in China on increasing their overall box office, and they're kind of coming out of this transition period. So I think 2024 is still a little caught in that period, but I believe 2025, with the slate I described, plus a lot of what's going on in China, will, you know, start up the curve.
Interesting. And then, can you talk about the benefits of some of the recent corporate actions that you've taken in China? In 2023, you announced plans to acquire 100% ownership of IMAX China. So can you give us an update of-
Yeah, so we own 70% of it now. There was some good financial reasons to do that, but we needed 90% of the 30% outstanding, which meant 2.7% of the outstanding could block it. We got, you know, the vast majority of the shares tendered, and we did it because it was accretive, and it cleaned up some intercompany issues for us. In China, you need the approval of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to do intercompany things, so it wasn't approved. And it was at a significant premium. But what we did was very much a workaround. So the reasons we really needed to do it, we did. We accomplished without having to take the company private.
So I still might do it or might not do it, but it's, there's much less benefit there in doing it than there was. We're still undecided, and I guess, you know, adding something snarky, which I shouldn't, it's like we offered a 50% premium. You know, the activists thought they were clever and thought they could game us, so we figured out a way to accomplish the results, and they thought they put a gun to our head, so there's no gun to our head, and if it makes sense, we'll do it.
Right.
If it's not, it's a great company, but the stock is highly illiquid, and I, you know, good luck to them.
Right. Right. So you mentioned that, you know, IMAX generates the majority of revenue outside the U.S. Could you just give us, like, kind of a picture of how much runway you think is left in international markets, where you're under-penetrated, and what markets you think are the most attractive right now?
So we're about 50% penetrated globally of our addressable market. In the rest of the world outside the U.S., we're about 35% penetrated, which means we could, you know, more than double our network. As I said, we have 500 theaters in backlog, 1,800 open, so those are ones that are signed and we know we're gonna grow into. As I said, also, we signed 100 this year. The areas of the world that I consider, you know, most promising right now, I think Japan, kind of the way we scoped it out, we could have more than 100 theaters there, and we have 50 now. In Saudi Arabia, we have 15 open, and we can do, like, 75 there.
I think Western Europe has great potential. We only have 11 theaters in Germany, and believe it or not, we have 11 in Ecuador. So, you know, Ecuador may be on the high end for a small country, but we could do a lot more there. France, our theaters are very successful there. LatAm is very under-penetrated. India, we only have about 40 theaters open, and we have an addressable market of about 150, and then we keep increasing the addressable market.
Right.
So we started in China, you know, we thought we could do 90 theaters, and we have 800 right now. So, you know, the, even though I said 35% in the rest of the world, I think we could do more than that eventually.
Right. And then, you know, there are periods of time where certain markets grow faster than others. Is there any particular market outside the U.S. that you see as more attractive than others right now?
Right now, Southeast Asia has really been on fire. So we've done, you know, we've done a deal this year in Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and I think it's because those economies and the demographic is rising so quickly. So after you can afford, you know, food and shelter, entertainment becomes a big thing.
So those are really very much doing well.
How much growth is driven by the kind of high-profile films that we were talking about earlier versus regional, local language films in specific markets?
I think it depends. I think it really has to be a mix. So in India, for example, we have a lot more local language Indian content than we used to have, and as we pivoted to more of that, the theater sales went up significantly and the footprint expanded. I just told you this story about Korea
Right
and this crazy weekend we had. So I, you know, think it's a little bit of a mix of where that happens, and it depends. And, you know, we did a local language Indonesian film, which drew some interest. Japan, we've been really killing it with anime, and we've been killing it not only with anime in Japan, but we've exported that anime to the U.S. Even in China, a lot of, I think I might mess it up, but a film called Dragon Ball, I think, did more in China than it did in Japan, anime. So that's another thing we're doing. It's not just local language in the local market, but taking the local language.
You know, I know Netflix has done very well with that in the in-home side of the business, and that's been extremely successful for us, you know, doing local language film. As I said, it's now about 20%. I think we could do a lot more of it. Just an anecdote in Japan, you've probably heard of Miyazaki, which is the most famous anime director in Japan, and he came out with a new film last year, and we said we'd like to do it in IMAX. And he said, "You know, I've been doing things a certain way for my entire career." He's, you know, very, very accomplished guy.
But our team kept pushing and pushing, and we spec'd it out, and we showed him what it looked like in IMAX, and eventually he did it in IMAX, and it did well in Japan. It did well in the U.S. also. You know, all of these things, even though we're a global brand, they're like local, you know, battles.
Right.
I just want to tell you a funny anecdote, because I know you live in the Hamptons like I do. So, they're building an IMAX theater in Southampton, and, you know, people say to me, "You know, I don't know what you do. I don't know what IMAX is." But since they've found out it's going in Southampton, all these people stop me and they go, "Wow, there's an IMAX theater going up. Isn't that a big deal?" And again, I fight myself.
I don't want to say, "Well, you know, it's eighteen hundred and one." But the local aspect of it is such... It's like they're the first ones, and they're, like, the only ones. And, you know, by the way, I expect to get calls about asking for free tickets and taking the popcorn off the seats. But as a reminder, we don't operate anything. It's a license.
It's historical. How do you think about allocating capital across regions, especially in cases where you're doing revenue sharing arrangements and putting up the capital?
It really depends on the market. For example, we had a very good presence in Russia before the sanctions happened. We had, like, 60 theaters, but we didn't put up any capital. We sold all of them. I, you know, feel terribly that we can't operate them, but obviously understand the geopolitical situation. But we had no money stuck over there. You know, it really depends on what the economy is. It depends on the potential of the location also. You know, if you're putting a theater in Times Square and someone wanted to share the upside and joint venture it, we'd be really happy to do that. But if it was a theater, you know, in some small town that was really spread out in a rural area, you know, we, we would rather minimize our risk there.
Right. All right, I'm, like, watching the clock, so I'm gonna go to the last two questions, so the first is technology question. There's just been so much innovation, you know, at IMAX, but, you know, with AI. I guess, you know, with the advent of AI, can you talk about how you're using some of the newer technologies? What you think is coming? You know, obviously you have, like, a very strong brand, very strong reputation, so, you know, like, you can't. You're obviously not gonna damage that, but how do you think. You know, what do you think of technological innovation using AI, and how would you plan on integrating that within the business?
So we're very actively trying to integrate it, first of all, on the cost side and the operations side, and, you know, we're quite deep in understanding it. So, you know, there are a lot of, a lot of ways that we can minimize costs. I'll give you just one example. We monitor every one of our theaters in the world in real time. So if the sound is too low in Beijing, we call them and tell them to turn it up. But we're wired to do that right now. But we get tons of data that we really can't analyze because there's just too much of it. But one of the things we can do is predictive maintenance, so we can figure out if something is gonna break in Malaysia and when it will.
It'll help us monitor our costs of maintenance, and it'll help us manage our inventory much better, and I could give you 20 more examples
Right
but there's lots of things. Also, on the content side, obviously, AI is gonna play a role. One of the things we do is we blow up images. We make the images look better and image quality, and certainly there are tools that can help us sharpen the image even better and maybe lower cost than we're doing it now. I know there's been a big debate about where creatives fit in to the whole thing and, you know, we work with a lot of the AI things. I've seen a lot of the tools directors are using now, and, you know, I think over time, just the way the synthesizer people got paid for their music, there'll be a very fair solution, so people will get paid for their talents.
But I do think AI ultimately is gonna have a dramatically positive effect on IMAX and on the industry.
Right. So, you know, I guess finishing up, you laid out, like, a pretty solid growth plan and runway for success, but is there anything, I guess, anything that we haven't covered and what you might be the most excited about as a driver over the next, you know, couple of years?
I'd say the combination of factors, the integration. One of the problems with doing things like this is you talk about them in silos rather than you integrate them as a whole. But you put together, you know, a bigger theater network. You put together increased market share, which has been happening year-over-year. You put together new forms of alternative content. You put together more films used filming with our content, increase in local language film. You know, it all, it all feels pretty good.
Right. No, you have a lot of drivers, and you've come through, like, a lot of challenges, not you, the industry-
Yeah
through the pandemic, through the strikes.
Yeah, and, you know, because we're in ninety countries, during COVID, we had 90 rolling lockdowns in addition to no content because it wasn't being made during that period. So I'm really happy to see that behind us and
Right
you know, to look in the next couple of years.
Great. Thank you so much for coming.
Thanks, Jess.
Love having you back. Thank you. Gunnar Wiedenfels, the CFO of Warner Bros. Discovery, and we have a lot of ground to cover. So we actually made this session a bit longer than everybody else's
Oh!
because you're so special. So, so Gunnar, it's been a little over two years since the WarnerMedia and Discovery combination, and you spent a great deal of time and effort and energy restructuring, transforming, and realigning the company across every division. You've obviously accomplished a great deal. However, as you, as you've done that, the industry has continued to evolve, and probably not in a great way. You've also described this as a generational disruption. But you see an ability to capitalize on this disruption through opportunity? You know, I'd like just maybe sort of with that as a backdrop, from here, what are the key priorities for the company?
Kind of like a question that we've asked before, but, you know, what's the path for Warner Bros. Discovery to eventually find a path to consolidated growth?
Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for having me, first of all. Good to see everyone. Yeah, talk about a generational disruption. It's astounding if you go back to, you know, some of the assumptions we made three years ago and just look at where the industry is today. There's no question about that. To your point, you know, that trend, that disruption has challenges, it has opportunities as well. We've talked a lot about the challenges and, you know, one of the opportunities may have been that we had to work on them a little bit earlier than everybody else. So we got a bit of a head start of, you know, rethinking everything, and a lot of the change that's happened in the industry, you know, we were the first ones to drive.
So we've had a lot of success, to your point, in changing the trend, you know, restructuring the company, changing the financial profile, generating a lot more free cash flow. You know, it's interesting, actually, we have actually paid down more debt to this point than, you know, what we presented to agencies three years ago. As you know, the denominator has also been down, so there's no question about it. To talk about the opportunities, we have tremendous opportunities. The most important point is, this is, you know. We're facing challenges to the distribution ecosystem, not to the content ecosystem, right? People are consuming more than ever.
We happen to make some of the greatest content in the world, and the way this content is consumed is changing, but we have a tremendous opportunity. We've got our hands on a studio asset, underutilized studio asset, which we're managing very differently now. We can talk more about it. We have talked about it a fair bit, and you know, the transformation of such an asset takes a little bit of time, but we've put a lot in place that gives me a lot of confidence for future growth. Importantly, you know, we've gone through two years of investments in the D2C space.