You guys hear me? Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. Today we have the pleasure of hosting Natasha Fernandes, CFO of IMAX. Thank you for being here.
Oh, my pleasure, Omar. Thanks for having us.
Maybe, maybe to start, for those that are not familiar with IMAX, could you give us an overview of the business and what differentiates you guys from exhibitors?
Sure. I mean, we are an entertainment and technology company. We essentially have a global platform that spans almost 90 countries and 1,800 locations. I mean, it is a worldwide platform that is unlike any other, which completely makes us not an exhibitor because no exhibitor spans the world like we do. Also, the exhibitors are our customers. We essentially have, I'd say, most of them as being our customers in that we sell or lease our technology to them in order for them to have the IMAX experience as part of their complex and essentially provide consumers with a unique experience when picking, you know, a movie or a piece of content to go see.
That's great. Maybe before we get into the business, IMAX just issued new convertible notes and, in conjunction, retired all of the 2026 converts that were outstanding. Could you talk around the terms of the new convert, the goal of the transaction, and what made that attractive?
Sure. I mean, the goal of the transaction was essentially to solidify our capital structure for the next five years. I think we did a really good job of accomplishing that. The notes were issued at two, we issued new notes at $250 million, so higher, slightly higher than last time. They were at a 0.75% coupon, which is an increase of only 25 basis points from the notes we entered into during the pandemic in March of 2021, which, when you think about the way interest rates have increased over the past five years, for us to have only increased by 25 basis points, was definitely a successful transaction for us.
On top of that, when you couple in the capped call that we paid for, which means we bought, we essentially did our own little share repurchase on this, it brought the conversion premium all the way up to $57. Now we've gone from our old notes sitting at $37- $57. What was unique about the old notes and when we retired them is you have your choice to kind of settle in shares or cash. We actually took that opportunity instead of settling in shares 'cause they were now in the money. That meant our stock price appreciated a significant amount from the $21 we issued it back in 2021 up to, it was sitting at $33. Essentially, we paid that out in cash.
Doing essentially another share repurchase, for ourselves instead of diluting the stock for our investors. I think that's something that, you know, I've said this before as well. I'm very focused on making sure that we return value to our shareholders and not create dilution. I think this was a great way for us to show that, as we spent the cash out of our pocket of $40 million essentially.
No, that's, that's super helpful. Maybe just jumping in, I think one key takeaway from your third-quarter results was not only that it was your highest third quarter ever from a gross box office perspective, but that it came with very little help from Hollywood content, which showcased IMAX, diversified content portfolio, your programming agility, and your global scale. Can you talk about IMAX's differentiated strategy and the mechanics behind programming such diversely?
Yeah. I think it was finally one of the quarters that showed the best example of why we're not an exhibitor, back to your first question, because, you know, we were able to program a lot of local language and couple that with strong Hollywood content as well. We still had F1. We had Superman. We had Fantastic Four, among other content. One Battle came out as well and Conjured, lots of horror titles, right? Diversifying the content slate on the Hollywood side and then coupling that with a very strong local language slate, in Demon Slayer, plus I think we had three or four Chinese local language content pieces that came out over the summer. We did our first German title as well in August. Really leaning into our global nature of our platform.
You know, what content plays in one country is not necessarily the content that will play best or give us the best return in a different country. Our distribution team is really focused on using the historical data we have as to, you know, what does the consumer base like and really leaning in on that. I think Demon Slayer is probably your best example. Like, that opened the same weekend as Fantastic Four. In Japan, we actually carved out Japan and we chose to go with Demon Slayer instead of launching Fantastic Four. What was great about that deal is we did that in a very unique way where IMAX was the only premium screen you could see Demon Slayer on in Japan for a two-week period. It was IMAX and then standard screens.
That was the way that we really, that the studio really leaned into IMAX as being that platform to see the content in as well. You know, we were up globally 50% year- over- year for the quarter, whereas domestically was down, you know, down 11%, I think it was. Domestically we were up almost 30%. I think even from that situation, you can even look at it as we're adding and we're lifting even the domestic box office as well in a market when the domestic is going down. We're trying to program with agility to make sure we're bringing good content in. Demon Slayer did come in from a local language perspective, did get exported into the U.S. and into other markets in Q3 as well. I think we indexed almost 20% on that too.
That's very interesting. Maybe let's dig in a little deeper on that. As you get bigger and obviously looking ahead, how does this play into the IMAX story and how are you able to manage the programming diversity as you scale bigger?
We have a really good team, distribution team, and we have a lot of data at our fingertips. We have a Jubio system that we have built out to be able to analyze this data and tell us, for instance, when there's a horror title in August, Warf was it? Weapons, Weapons. When Weapons was coming out, we knew it would play well, but only in certain markets. We looked back at all of our data to say, okay, which specific pockets of the U.S. would this title do really well in? What are the other pockets that we then push F1 and do the bring back of F1? We actually, on that weekend of Weapons opening, indexed over 15% on that one as well. We didn't even use our whole domestic network for that.
I think that's the point when you think about agility, that's the Hollywood side. Then you add in local language and looking at, okay, how do you program each country and what's gonna play well there as, too. I think that's the point of the platform, how do you maximize the box office for not only IMAX, but for the exhibitors as well by programming it with agility to be able to bring, to give consumers what they want and then to bring profit to everyone as well.
Maybe let's, on the topic of scale, how much operating leverage do you have in the business, and what's the flow through to the bottom line and free cash flow? Basically, what's the margin potential of the business as you continue to scale and drive Jubio higher?
I think you've seen it this year. We've had significant margin expansion this year, year- over- year. I mean, the first half we were tracking at 43%. Q3 alone, we did a 48% EBITDA margin. Year to date, we're sitting at 45%. Our guidance obviously was originally started the year at 40%, which would've been growth year- over- year. Now we're tracking even higher than 40%. I think the one thing about our model is that our costs, we've been able to find a way to make sure that our costs stay relatively fixed and stable. Even as you expand into new countries and you push the content out to more locations, that does not cost us anymore because we're already doing the versioning costs. We're already dubbing it or doing subtitle. We're already marketing in those countries.
Those costs are just getting spread over more locations. You are actually getting a lot of efficiency through that. You are getting higher box office levels that both the studio and the exhibitors are paying you for on that same box office dollar, which gets to flow mostly down to the bottom line. Even on the SG&A side, I think we have been doing a really good job of being really disciplined at keeping that at a pretty even level given the environment that we are in as well with inflation. I think that there has been a lot of good movements on that front.
I'm looking forward to everyone coming to or listening in on Investor Day as well, which is on December 4, because I think that's the opportunity where you'll get to hear from our management team, but also from myself as we look out into the long term.
Excited to go to Investor Day and looking forward to it. Maybe going back to one of the topics you mentioned earlier on local language. I mean, through Q, you've already done over $350 million in local language box office. That's well above your prior record of $240 million set back in 2023. International films account for 36% of your Jubio. How should we think about the opportunity in local language and alternative content for IMAX going forward? Maybe if you can weave in just how doing more local language content feeds into the growth of the network and, in particular, what's the opportunity in the rest of the world?
Yeah. I think local language has been such a great contributor to our model. When you think about it in 2019, we probably did, I think we did about 18 titles for local language in 2019, of which 14 were in China. Now you come to this year and we've done over 65 titles this year and less than, I think less than half of that is in China. When you think about just even growing this year alone, I think we're doing four new types of countries or languages, doing Arabic. We just did a Turkish one this past weekend, which did really well. German we did as well. We did Egyptian as well. I think next year we're slotted to do Portuguese, so, and Brazil.
I think that is, one is expanding into new countries. You think about the opportunity, this was a single-digit contributor to our box office back in 2019. Now you sit here and we're sitting at 35%-36% quarter, year to date, September. I mean, if we land out the year, it'll be over 30%. That's amazing when you think about, you're growing Hollywood, you're now growing local language, and we're starting alternative content as well. I think that's where you can see how, when we continue to guide to higher levels of box office each year, that's why we have such confidence in it, because we actually have a team who's focused on local language and looking for those pieces of content out there that are available.
We have actually done really well even in India with a lot of Indian titles. We are working on some more in the works right now. I think we have announced the Ramayana as well as being a Film for IMAX title. That is exciting to have even local language move into the Film for IMAX universe.
You mentioned about landing out the year, so maybe switching gears to the year, the end of the year slate here. How does the recent performance from IMAX and obviously the consumer enthusiasm get you excited about the last couple months here of the year? I mean, obviously you just had Demon Slayer in China, which did very well. You had Wicked pre-sales, which I'm curious to hear what you are seeing there. Also, it may be a bit early, but there's a lot of buzz around Avatar 3. Just curious on your takes on some of those films and the rest of the outlook.
Man, what a year it's been. We were already over a billion dollars of box office and we're headed towards a record year. I think, let's think about Demon Slayer this past weekend. Demon Slayer was released in July and we just finished out our release worldwide with China opening this past weekend. We did, I think we did over $12 million on this weekend, which was over 20%, I think it was 23% of indexing in China. It's still continuing actually, the midweek days after we're doing very strong results as well. I think overall in China, Demon Slayer is gonna do really well for us. I think overall Demon Slayer is now our top three of the year so far, 'cause it's at almost $90 million.
You think about Ninja 2, we did $160 million, F1, $100 million, and now Demon Slayer, two of our top three so far of the year in local language titles, which is amazing. You know, we're headed into the home stretch of the year. Wicked actually had an early access release last night and it has been our strongest early access release ever for ourselves. We were over $2 million of that early access release. That was amazing. I think that that's a great indicator of how we believe Wicked will do for us as it comes out this weekend. Then headed into Avatar as well. We have a lot of alt content coming in between there and some local languages, but then we head into Avatar.
I mean, Avatar, we've done over $250 million on the past Avatars. We now have increased market share. The marketing is leaning into IMAX. Our consumer base is leaning into IMAX as well. When you think about the opportunity sitting before us for Avatar, that spans over the two years, right? December through till the end of January. It's gonna be a really strong period. I think it'll do really well. I think the previews have looked fantastic. It's different, it's red, right? It's not blue this time as much. It gives you a different look and feel. I think everybody's gonna enjoy going back to Pandora.
Absolutely. I think the previews look amazing. I think you touched on marketing for Avatar and that's a big component for you guys. Maybe if you can touch on just the puts and takes going into, you know, the end of the year and how does marketing play a role in, in, into the model for IMAX.
I mean, when you think about a $250 million title, of course we're gonna market it and we're gonna put some funds behind it, but it's gonna give us a very high return on our investment for marketing, right? I think that there's certain films where you just wanna lean in even more and give it the marketing that it deserves and demands as well. I think that's not only leaning in from IMAX, that's leaning in from the studios as well. You'll see a lot of event-level IMAX marketing happening that's coming from the studios as well, because it just creates a buzz around it. It also enables us to market it better for the studio and in order for the film to get more awareness as well.
I think we're all working really well in our partnerships, with studios and with the filmmakers to make sure we lean into the marketing and really to get the buzz out there. What's unique about the consumer base now is that you have to convince them that they wanna, that they gotta go see this movie, right? You gotta get them out of their homes and tell them that this deserves to be seen on the big screen. This deserves to be seen in IMAX. This deserves to be felt in your seats and with the sound, and that's really why you gotta lean into the marketing is you gotta convince them that it really is worth it.
Absolutely. Avatar is one of those films that you certainly need to go out there, right?
Worth it. Yeah.
I think it does. Usually Avatar has a long run on IMAX, right? This year it will have a nice carryover into Q1, which has been historically a bit of a down quarter for the domestic box office just in terms of number of films and content. You also have a tough year ago comp with China in there. Any color on how should we think about just Q1 in terms of, you know, you have the strength of Avatar, but you also have the really stellar comp last year in China?
Yeah. I mean, we think Q1's gonna be very strong for us actually. If you looked at this past year, Ninja 2, yes, it did very well and it, you know, $2 billion local language title, that's not a normal occurrence. I get your question, but it also took us, we played Ninja 2 for four to five months. When you think about just the length of time you played that piece of content, now you're just gonna have more content coming in is part of it as well. In Q1, we started on the Hollywood side this year. There wasn't really any carryover of any titles, right? You entered the year with Mufasa and some other small pieces of content. There wasn't a lot going on in domestic, as you said.
Whereas this year in 2026 coming up, you're gonna have Avatar, which we've pro, we've done historically on the past Avatars over $100 million in the Q1 period. You take Avatar in 2026 for us, then you take a Chinese New Year, which we right now the lineup looks really strong, including a Film for IMAX title. You take that, you have a strong Chinese New Year, couple that with Avatar, and you can easily see how that's over a $250 million quarter. I think part of it is, even if you look back historically, while Q1 of 2025 was driven by Ninja 2, the amount of box office it garnered in that period was comparable to the box office of a Q1 in the prior year or the year before that.
It just, what it comes down to is the mix of content that you're playing. It is back to the programming agility and your distribution strategy of making sure you're just programming the right pieces of content and the right amount of content in to basically keep increasing your box office numbers every quarter, year- over- year.
I think you mentioned the $250 million number and we talked about, you know, the operating leverage in the model. I know you've in the past highlighted that number as a key benchmark internally to drive the operating leverage. Can you maybe remind folks on what's the importance of getting above that level and how does the model really operates differently above $250 million on Jubio?
Sure. When we hit over $250 million of box office in a quarter, essentially every box office dollar over that $250 million level, we've tracked it to be about an 85% flow through down to the bottom line. That is down to EBITDA and down to cash as well. I think that's what's unique about our model. I talked about this a little earlier, because our costs are so fixed, really if we keep focusing on that top line growth, that is where we're gonna create the operating leverage in the model and show how it can expand in a very significant way. I think, you know, Q3 was a great example of that. We had $368 million of box office in the quarter and we had a 48% margin.
You can easily see, and we did that back in the Oppenheimer quarter as well. You can easily see when you start to hit those higher levels of box office, that truly is flowing right through to the bottom line. What I'm excited about for 2026 is you can see very clearly how that $250 million level will be exceeded on a very consistent basis in the future. It just seems, it's a very new level for us as a business. I think it's an exciting place to be where you can basically be makers of your content in your out, in your future, as opposed to waiting for content to come to you and try to make something of it.
That's a perfect segue. You talked about 2026 being a good year for you guys. You guys have over 10 films slated to be filmed for IMAX. Highlighted, you have obviously Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. You have Narnia, which is gonna be exclusive on the IMAX Network. You have Star Wars, Dune Part 3, and many other films. How do you feel about the 2026 slate and the opportunity to continue to grow, you know, above what has been so far a stellar 2025?
I feel like I'm gonna be at the movies a lot in 2026. There's gonna be a lot of good content. It's exciting. You can easily see how 2026 is a stronger year than 2025. I think that's what we're so excited about is because of the shift in consumer behavior, couple that with our marketing that's been happening and the market share we've been taking, and then add onto it the way that we've been programming the global network in a way to maximize our box office. I mean, it's very easy to see how all of these films added together will lead to another record year. I think what is really important is these, like these titles in particular, the Film for IMAX program, that program has really shifted the nature of IMAX in the ecosystem.
We are working directly with filmmakers on a level that has not happened before. We are having conversations with them at the onset, working through whether it's film or digital or what, you know, what portions could be, working through the marketing directly with the filmmakers and producers. That program is actually one that I think is such a successful program and one that we're leaning into, especially with the titles you mentioned with Star Wars and Dune and The Odyssey, of course, Nolan. One hundred percent of that film is filmed with the film cameras. It will be the first time ever. I mean, he challenges us to lots of things, but this was definitely a very significant challenge. Again, I can't wait for you to hear more about it in investor day.
I think that, and then of course you have Dune, and we've had numbers of where we've shown how successful and over 20% indexing on the past Dunes. Then Narnia, a very exclusive piece of content straight to IMAX. I think it comes back to the way, when you asked me about the IMAX business, it's about the platform. If filmmakers want a platform that can have global reach and be able to just elevate their piece of content, which is originally just made for streaming, I think that's the point of it. It's simply made for streaming, but they want a launch platform. IMAX is that global platform that you can use to reach the consumers and the fans and to create buzz around it.
It gives you the best experience as well from a technology perspective when you think about not only the projector, but you're coupling with the projector, the sound, the screen, and the configuration of theater and the fact that the projector is at its highest quality at all points in time because we monitor it all the time. I think you put all those pieces together and it becomes, you know, one of the most premium and exclusive platforms for a filmmaker.
Absolutely. You touched on how successful this Filmed For IMAX program has been. Can you remind us what's the difference for films that are released under that program in terms of market share versus just traditional IMAX films that are not Filmed For IMAX?
Our film for IMAX program is, where the filmmaker uses our cameras, usually our digital cameras. Very few use our film cameras. Essentially, they're filming it with our cameras. We are working with them throughout the process. Then we do post-production with them. The marketing, the filmmaker leans into the marketing and says, I filmed it in IMAX. You need to see it in IMAX. The studios also then lean into IMAX. There are bespoke marketing pieces that basically have IMAX very large in the marketing, because it is a film for IMAX title. As part of that deal, we also then commit our network to two weeks as well.
When you think about it, our, you know, our real estate is, we do not own complexes like exhibitors, but we do have 52 weeks and that is our real estate. That is essentially our selling tool. We need to make sure we maximize what we do in 52 weeks. That Film for IMAX program basically gives two of those weeks to that title. That is how we kind of lean in from our perspective as well. I think it has worked really well. To the extent that even some titles where we would not have necessarily put it as Film for IMAX because the studios, particular studios want it, want to lean in from IMAX into the Film for IMAX program.
We've even been able to modify some of our program to do just one week, for instance, or to carve out our network and say, okay, you won't get the international footprint, you'll get the domestic, because they wanted to lean into IMAX more. It all tends to lead towards higher market share. In our run of eight Filmed For IMAX titles in a row this year, I think we averaged over 15% market share on domestic opening weekend. I think three or four of them this year even indexed over 20% this year so far. I think that's what you're seeing. Like imagine indexing 20% on an opening weekend and we only have 1% of the screens. That means that the consumer base understands, is understanding more clearly now than ever before the difference that The IMAX Experience is.
I thought something interesting you talked about was just sort of the real estate you guys have and the limit of 52 weeks. Are you guys fully booked for 2026, both or either in the Film for IMAX slate and just overall in terms of the programming, or are you still able to manage and add some films as they come out?
Most of the very, popular periods are booked already. I mean, The Odyssey in the summer takes up three weeks, and then, and Dune and Star Wars and Narnia, of course, and Avatar at the beginning of the year. I think you can see how the weeks already have started to come down. but actually we have a pretty full slate next year. It's not completely full, but, to sit through, for instance, right now as the CFO, to sit through the budgeting season and to sit here and say, I actually have a list of all the titles in 2026 and I can add up the box office and know what my number is, that's a pretty good place to be in. I think there's a lot of opportunity, when you look at local language.
I think we could still be very agile in thinking about our 1,800 worldwide footprint and saying, okay, we do have our domestic market mapped out, but we could use little, little shoulder periods to slot in, local language titles and alternative content. This year alone, I think we're doing over 20 titles of alternative, 20 pieces of alternative content. You know, when you think about that local language story back in 2019 of 18 titles of local language, now over 65, and now this year we're doing 20 pieces of alternative content. I think there's an opportunity to keep pushing that as well. You start to have three sort of prongs to be able to grow box office.
Maybe touching on, on sort of, I think what you've alluded to is the improved visibility into the business, right? Like, and that's changed, I would say, dramatically over the last five years. Can you maybe talk about what's the visibility out and how you guys are, you know, getting demand from studios out and maybe not only 2026, but 2027, 2028? How's that change and how's that help the business of, you know, for you and for the programming side of the equation?
I think it goes back to your, the 52 weeks. If you only have 52 weeks, that means if a studio wants their content to be on the IMAX platform, you need to come to us ahead of time. I mean, filmmakers are, they start filming a couple of years out. It is not that they would not know what their, what the content is. Right now we actually have a lot of visibility and for the first time in our history, to be sitting in a place this year where we have a backlog of film. We have always had a backlog for our network and for growing our network, but it is a new concept to us this year.
We have talked about it as well, on our earnings calls, that to have a pipeline for film is a really strong position to be in, to know that we have big titles in 2027, in 2028, and even in 2029, is a very exciting place to be. I think what is great about it too is it gives us the opportunity to start those conversations with the filmmakers now and for them to lean in and for them to use our technology in the right way and for us to make sure that the whole goal is to maximize box office for everyone.
Since you talked about the network, I think we should touch on, you know, talk a little bit about the signings. I think signings have been very strong so far this year. You've already surpassed all of 2024. On the third quarter call, you guys raised your installations guidance towards the higher end of the range. Can you give us an update on how's demand for IMAX systems and what are some key markets that you're targeting to drive continued growth into 2026?
We've had some really strong demand for IMAX this year. Our signings are actually 25% higher than full year 2023 last year. Right now we're sitting at, I think, just 162 signings for the year right now, which is versus the 130 last year. In that, you know, 100 of them are in North America, which shows that there's a lot of demand still for North American complexes. Obviously we've grown in Japan, has 11, I think, in the year. Other European, in the European markets, about 14-15. We've done a really good job of diversifying the signings this year. There's a lot of demand. It comes back to the local language piece.
You know, we did four new types of local language, local languages this year that then starts to open the market, right? In Germany, for instance, you sign, you do more, you do local language, then you'll sign more deals and then it'll just keep going around in a nice little effect for us, right? Growing the market in those regions. You know, and then the Narnia of it all will come into play at some point where if you don't have an IMAX screen, you're not gonna get Narnia. I think that that's also very important. Narnia's not the only one, for instance. I mean, Narnia is the biggest one when you think about from a filmmaker and then from a studio perspective, but we've done a lot of other content that's just been unique to IMAX.
I think that that also is the other opportunity, because of our programming agility, whether that be local language or alternative content. We have had a lot of bespoke content on just the IMAX platform. That is what is enabling us to grow as we continue to work, reach towards record levels of both box office, but also growing our network too.
I think you touched on, you know, obviously North America, which is certainly a nice surprise. That's a very mature market. Maybe our last question here before we wrap things up. I'm just curious, we just saw you guys did a deal with IMAX, what, Cinemark for the first time since I think 2019. What are the opportunities to continue to expand the U.S. footprint and maybe even tap into other underserved markets like Latin America?
I think there's a lot of opportunity. I mean, we've obviously captured a lot of market share in the major cities, but there's a lot of America that we haven't tapped into yet because you have single operators, right? You know, we've done deals with the large AMC and Regal and Cinemark and Evo now, but you know, we just signed with Apple Cinemas. Now we're doing all these little one-offs because you've got little regional operators, right? It really just comes down to their size of complex, one that can handle an IMAX screen. If they can, then we will. I mean, we even put one in Southampton. It's a very small town, but it's an affluent town.
It's the opportunity where you look at, we can make things work for where it makes sense to grab some box office.
Awesome. I'll leave it there and thank you so much for joining us here.
Yeah. I'm excited for all of you to tune into our investor day. I think this was just the trailer, the movies to come.
Awesome. Thank you.