Hi, thank you everyone for joining today's fireside chat with IMAX's CEO, Richard Gelfond. We're going to have a discussion on IMAX's growth strategy, the future of moviegoing, including PVOD, and IMAX's new business initiatives, the current state of execution, including the effects of reopening measures and the impact of the Delta variant, to name a few. Rich has served as IMAX's sole Chief Executive Officer since 2009 and IMAX's Co-Chief Executive since 1996. Since 2015, Mr. Gelfond has also been Chairman and Non-Executive Director of IMAX's subsidiary, IMAX China Holding Inc. My name is Mike Ng. I cover movie theaters and IMAX at Goldman Sachs, and I have the privilege of moderating today's discussion with Mr. Gelfond. We have 40 minutes inclusive of audience Q&A.
If you'd like to ask a question, please feel free to submit your question through the webcast, and I'll ask the question on your behalf. First, Rich, thank you very much for making yourself available. We're excited to have you, and I certainly appreciate your time.
Thanks, Mike. It's obviously a good time to be here because with everything going on.
Great. Well, let's start off and talk about this past month. Shang-Chi, that was a theatrical-only release that drove a record Labor Day opening weekend. Disney then subsequently announced that five of its next six titles in 2021 will have at least a 45-day exclusive theatrical release. Also, you had Venom moves up and No Time to Die reiterated its place within the schedule. And finally, Dune's results in select international markets have been really strong. So could you talk a little bit about the implications of some of these developments for reopening? Is this a turning point for the industry?
It absolutely is a turning point, Michael, and I think that you used Labor Day as the day, but I think you could go back a little before that when Free Guy came out, and that did some very strong numbers, and our indexing was very high, and it's been a long pandemic with a lot of ups and downs, but I think we're finally, I finally can say that we're there and that the business looks very good going forward. Just to give you some statistics, the month of September isn't over yet, but we believe for September our box office will be about the same as it was for the years 2017 through 2019, and as I look into October, and you mentioned a little bit of it, but you have Venom, which was moved back, and that's opening, and that's tracking to a very strong number.
And then you have Bond, which is opening a week after that. In fact, in England and some other places, it's opening a week earlier than that. So even in part of September to go. The Dune results you mentioned. Dune was shot with IMAX cameras, as was Bond, by the way, which generally leads us to index market share extremely strong when that happens. And Dune opened to $26,000 a screen internationally. And by the way, the territories were not the highest grossing IMAX territories in the world. They were places like Germany and France and Russia, places like that. And just to give you a sense, 26,000 a screen is similar to what the last Spider-Man did, and that was one of our top five movies of the year during a non-pandemic period of time. You had mentioned that Disney had changed its theatrical release windows.
Just to clarify a little bit of that, every window, every movie that they're releasing in 2021 has a window attached to it this year, including Eternals, which is a big Marvel movie, which comes out after Dune, it's the next one, and then after Eternals, you have Ghostbusters, which is doing very well. Later in the year, you have the next Spider-Man, which was done with Marvel and Sony. You have Matrix. I mean, it's kind of like a dream lineup for the rest of the year, so if you look at theatrical as a function of what do the numbers look like, where are the releases going, I mean, it seems, although it's never this easy, but at this point, I think we've entered kind of a formulaic stage where it's proven that people are coming to these blockbuster movies.
For the first time, the studios are releasing them with theatrical windows around them. The audience is there for Bond, is also tracking very well, and the pre-sales are pretty strong globally going into it. So yeah, I mean, it's been a long march across the desert, Michael, but I can drink the water now.
You mentioned a lot of films, and I definitely want to dive into the film slate for the rest of the year. But before I do, I just want to talk a little bit more about windowing. Rich, you've called Premium Video On-Demand a failed experiment in the past. Could you talk a little bit about your views on PVOD in greater detail? Was PVOD a success for Black Widow? How do you think about the availability of PVOD windows and whether or not this is something that we'll continue to see studios use, or is this going to be a relic of the past?
So I want to put it in two categories for a second, Michael. I think for movies that IMAX does, blockbuster movies, PVOD is something that's a thing of the past, and I'll explain why in a minute. I think for smaller movies, more niche movies, it's possible that PVOD remains. So why do I think that PVOD is a thing of the past? I mean, you just have to look at the data. And by the way, I give Disney a lot of the credit. I think Disney looked at the data. They said it was an experiment, and they would analyze the results. They saw what the results were around Black Widow. They saw what the results were around Jungle Cruise. Their next few movies, Free Guy and Shang-Chi, they saw those results, and then they decided to go with a theatrical window.
What the results showed was that the day-and-date release, whether it was PVOD or whether it was straight to a streaming service, significantly cannibalized the theatrical window. You saw really and it wasn't just Disney. I mean, Warner tried the same thing earlier in the year, and they've announced that all of their films will have theatrical windows, 45 days, in 2022. There isn't a studio now that has day-and-date release patterns for blockbuster movies. There's a lot of reasons for that. One of them is piracy. Some of these movies were among the most pirated in history. You looked at some of the torrent websites, and you looked at more people were watching on illegal downloads, and they were watching on the streaming services. That's not good for the studios or the exhibitors.
The studios might like their streaming services, but free doesn't really work for their model. So that was one major reason. Another one was when you looked at the second week drops after the opening weekend, those were extreme. So on a week-to-week basis, most of the PVOD movies dropped theatrically about 70%-80%. You look at the drops around Free Guy, Shang-Chi, Quiet Place, F9. I mean, those were more in the 40%-50% range, which is consistent with pre-pandemic levels. I think you also look at how you create an event around a property. And we could use examples like, let's go back for Wonder Woman. The first one did $800 million theatrically. The second one did $150 million theatrically. And I think because once people have access to even legally turning it on in their home, it just doesn't take the same effort.
They say, "Oh, I'll sample it. I'll see how it goes." When they see it, they're eating a snack. They're talking on the telephone. They're texting. They're doing all kinds of things. So it doesn't create a cultural event in the same way. And anecdotally, I think the best example is Shang-Chi. I mean, Shang-Chi was really the first cultural event on film this year. People are talking about it. People are writing about it. I predict the merchandise as a sell-through will be a lot higher around it. They haven't announced it, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a sequel come out of it. There's a reason that a window existed for decades and decades because you created events around the property. You made the property much more valuable. And at the same time, you created the ability to sell the same content multiple times.
I'll just be very brief, but F9 did $700 million theatrically without a simultaneous release. Its streaming value and its ancillary values are all intact. Some of the simultaneous ones, the best ones, did around half of that. They did that, and they already ate through their streaming window. We haven't had access to what downloads were or what the ancillaries were. Anecdotally, I could tell you and the actions of every studio. It just doesn't make economic sense for the studios or the streaming service.
Shifting over to a discussion around content, IMAX has a relatively stacked slate of upcoming blockbusters for the rest of the year. You mentioned several of them at the onset of our conversation. Can you walk us through your thoughts on the slate for the rest of the year? And is there a particular title that excites you the most that you think could actually be a catalyst that brings more people back into the theaters who have been reticent to come back otherwise?
I mean, the data, I'm sure some people are hesitant, Michael, but the data has shown, I mean, Shang-Chi is about to pass Ant-Man for Marvel in terms of domestic box office. And that's during a pandemic, and it wasn't known intellectual property. So I don't think it needs an extra year. I think we're pretty much there. And I think that when you look at, if you ask me the one, it's hard. It's like choosing between your children, which are the favorite ones to come out. But Bond was shot with IMAX cameras. The director of Bond, Cary Joji Fukunaga, said, "After using those cameras, I feel like I've flown first class, and I don't want to go back to coach anymore." Dune was shot with IMAX cameras. And Denis Villeneuve, the director, he kind of went crazy in some of the recent interviews in Harper's Bazaar.
He's told his fans, "Go see it in IMAX. Don't watch it. Certainly don't watch it in other ways, including streaming." And he said, "I'm paraphrasing, a band of brothers should be formed that only wants to show things in IMAX. And we support each other and do that." By the way, I agree with that. He's a very smart man to say that. And then, although there's a lot of other things in there, I've heard great things about the upcoming Spider-Man. And I've heard that even from people at Marvel who are typically modest about their own views about where they're going. So I'd look at those three, but you look at Venom. You look at Ghostbusters. I think pretty much all of them are very exciting for this year. As I said, I'd be really surprised if there was a hiccup.
I think it has to be something not on the grid now.
Can we look out a little bit further? Could you just share any early views that you might have on the 2022 slate? It'd be helpful to hear what films you have the highest expectations for and whether or not there are any films that you think are currently underappreciated and might be able to surprise to the outside.
Sure. Next year's slate is ridiculous in a good way, largely because films got moved out of 2020 and 2021. You have four Marvel films coming out next year. Again, if you ask me to pick the one with the highest potential in that group, it's difficult. But Black Panther 2 clearly has a lot of good heritage behind it. I'm particularly upset about all of them, but that one in particular. Top Gun and Mission: Impossible and Jurassic World are part of next year. I have the privilege of seeing Top Gun, and I think it's one of the best theatrical releases I've ever seen. I think it's going to resonate. It's hard to believe that almost 40 years later, but I'm not going out of the window because I've seen it. It's really incredible.
I think people have high expectations, but I think it'll surprise. I was on the set of Mission: Impossible when the restrictions came along, and Tom Cruise is still doing stunts, and they're beyond anything anyone's seen before. Obviously, Jurassic World, it doesn't take a genius to put together IMAX and dinosaurs and get a brand association. I think the public gets that, and we always do really well, and then you're going to find this ironic when I talk about the most unappreciated one of the year. I think that's Avatar, and it comes out at the end of the year. I know you'll laugh because it's the biggest movie of all time. So how could it be unappreciated? I don't think people realize that IMAX did over $200 million in IMAX in the original Avatar.
I think we had around 140 screens at the time, and we have roughly 1,700 now. We re-released Avatar in China, and on 1% of the screens, we did 30% of the box office. I think there's an incredible brand association between IMAX and Avatar. I think people, even though it was released over a decade ago, again, the re-release in China, I think people somehow remembered and said, "I've got to see it in IMAX." I think it's a dream slate. I'm always picking off the high points for you. There are two DC movies, DC Comics coming out next year that we're very excited about. It's as good a year in the almost 30 years since I've been in IMAX.
Right. Well, that's a good segue. You mentioned China, so let's dive in there a little bit more. Could you talk a little bit about some of the growth that you've seen in IMAX in China? It's certainly been really impressive. There's been continued network expansion in China. Are you seeing any slowing growth at all as IMAX gains more market penetration in the country?
We have about 750 theaters open in China, and we have a backlog, I think, of around another 300. It could be low or high by a little bit. Maybe it's 250. Those are going to roll out over the next several years. That growth is kind of locked in. Last year, and this to me is one of the more incredible statistics about IMAX, when the world was closed, we had 70 signings around the world, and I think around 40 of those were in China. While they were shut down, they were doing one thing, which was signing up more IMAX theaters. There's a lot of activity going on in that area right now.
Again, the usual caveat, I don't know if it'll come to fruition or not, but of all the deals going on, there's probably over 100 theaters that we're discussing right now in China. We'll see where that goes. Also, the pandemic had one kind of good side effect for us in China, which is the way people say the pandemic accelerated technology, that it took five years and it put it into one year. We have a strategy in China that we've been implementing about local language films and issuing more Chinese-made films in the genres they were in. The pandemic, because Hollywood wasn't releasing films, forced us to do more Chinese-language films. Those were enormously successful. The most successful film in the whole world during 2020 was called The Eight Hundred, which was a Chinese film that was shot with IMAX cameras.
It was also an incredibly successful IMAX film. They released films in different genres, including science fiction, action-adventure. Those films all worked really well. Our indexing historically in China for local language films was we did at around 3% of the box office. Now, post-pandemic, we've been doing around 4.5% of the box office. We're about 50% better market share since that ended. I think the local audiences got used to seeing these films in IMAX, and I think people enjoy them that way. Because their box office has gone up, they're going to make more local language content. I'm quite enthusiastic. I think it will be a strong growth market for us.
Great. On the topic of local language, as you mentioned, it's been a really bright spot for IMAX, particularly in the last year. Can you talk a little bit about how local language helped to balance out the film slate when Hollywood production was shut down? And could you discuss your view on how local language films will fit into the film strategy going forward? I know that IMAX has three great Chinese local language films on the docket: The Battle at Lake Changjin, Water Boys, My Country, My Parents. So maybe you can talk a little bit about those as well.
Yeah. So I think, again, because the pandemic forced all of us to make the best with what we had available. So another country besides China that also benefited greatly from local language film was Japan. So we had a five-picture deal with Toho, which is one of the major studios in Japan. And during the pandemic, those films were released. And two of them became among the highest-grossing films in the history of Japan. One of them, called Demon Slayer, was the single highest-grossing film ever in Japan, and it was the highest-grossing IMAX film ever in Japan. The genre of many of these was anime, which is very popular with IMAX fans. Another film in that package, called Shin Evangelion, became one of the most popular movies in the history of Japan.
As a result of that deal, we have another five-picture deal with Toho, which we're going to roll out now. We released films in Korea. We've released films in Russia. We're talking about films in the Middle East. So we're truly a global company. We're in 84 countries. Only one-third of our revenue comes from the United States, two-thirds from different international markets. So the next evolution makes sense to be to mix in the local language films with the Hollywood releases. And from a box office point of view, I think that'll give us some tailwinds in some of those markets. You asked about the Chinese holiday, which comes up on October 1st. You mentioned the three movies we're doing. The first one you mentioned, I'm going to butcher it, so I'm not going to say it again.
Battle for Lake Chang'an.
Yeah. Yeah. That opened the Beijing Film Festival. It got extremely great feedback. Maoyan, which tracks expected box office, raised its estimates based on audience reactions. I think you can never predict a record, and I don't want to overpromise, but the records were set in 2019 and 2020, and it looks like, based on what we think in advance, that the combination of those three will be in the ballpark of what the records were for those years.
Great. And you talked a little bit about Japan. I was just wondering if we could talk about some of the other international markets that you're also in: Korea, Saudi Arabia. First, what are some of the growth strategies in those markets? And are you seeing any particular markets gain more traction than anticipated? Any meaningful growth opportunities in a particular market that you would call out?
Yeah. So I think you hit two of the three I'm most excited about. I mean, Japan, partly because of the local language, its average per-screen average for our 39 screens in Japan was $1.5 million. Remember, last year was a pandemic. The number two market was Australia at $750,000. So that just shows you just how it gives you a framework for how successful we've been in that market. And our addressable market is 100 screens in that market. We only have 39. So I think given that success, I have high expectations for there. In the Middle East, we signed a fair number of deals in Saudi Arabia, but not that many theaters are open yet. And obviously, because of the pandemic, it slowed down the opening pace. Construction kind of came to a halt there.
I think you'll see a lot more box office in Saudi Arabia. As a matter of fact, I leave for my first, well, my second big trip post-pandemic early next week for the Middle East. I have a number of discussions going on with our head of sales and our clients while I'm over there. The results, again, on a per-screen basis. The formula, I use those as two examples, but the formula is you need a foothold in a country, and then you need demonstrable business success. That means strong per-screen averages. When you do that and you look at the business model from the exhibitor's point of view, the paybacks are very rapid. The return on investment is very good, and you tend to build out those markets very quickly. I mean, some of the markets might surprise you a little bit, Michael.
Western Europe is very, very much underpenetrated. So in Germany, we're opening the biggest IMAX theater in the world in Leonberg. It's the size of a 737 in the next week or two. In Cannes, it's well known for the film festival and other things. We just opened our first IMAX theater in Cannes, which will be a tremendous showcase for us because of all the conferences, especially the film festival and using that as a tool that happened there. And I think a lot of other countries that you wouldn't expect are going to be surprising. One brief thing on North America, we haven't typically been that successful with smaller exhibitors. But as a result of the pandemic, there's been some roll-ups into larger hands. And one of the best circuits in the U.S. was a small circuit called ArcLight, which went bankrupt.
And two of ArcLight's theaters were picked up by AMC, and several were picked up by Regal. And as a result, they're including IMAXs in all of those. So I think it's a little bit like a second bite at the apple where you think you've kind of penetrated the market. And in fact, all four of those theaters are in the LA market, where for obvious reasons, that's where the directors are, the studios are, the talent is. So I think there may be opportunities that haven't been fully identified yet because of some of the consolidation.
Why don't we shift gears a little bit and talk about network expansion? The IMAX backlog is still very strong. That said, some exhibitors are facing challenges. And I think the rollout in terms of network expansion feels a little uncertain. But could you walk through, number one, which exhibitors are your biggest counterparties, and what conversations are you having as it relates to network expansion?
Pretty much every client in the world. I think it's every, but I don't want to overgeneralize because maybe we missed a few of the smaller ones. But we have about 350 theaters in backlog. And virtually every client has reaffirmed its commitment to the backlog. So it's a legally binding agreement already. And over the years, we've had very little slippage out of it. But we went back, and everybody is still committed. And that's not surprising because the early data on the pandemic coming out of the pandemic shows that audiences prefer IMAX and prefer premium entertainment. So again, in a world where windows are shorter and you have more things to see at home, it makes common sense that people would say, "If I'm going to go out, I want something really special." And I mentioned to you the statistics in China of greater market share.
And we've seen the same thing in Japan and the experience with Dune this weekend. So I think exhibitors get it that the way to get people back to the theater is not going to be more older theaters and more, "Let's clean our theaters less, and let's tell people to talk on the telephone more." These are pretty smart people. They understand if they're going to win audiences over, they need to provide better and better experiences. And IMAX does that. In terms of answering your question was the pace of coming out of it. As I said, we installed 70 theaters in 2020 or something like that. It might have been a little bit more than that. Obviously, when people were a little bit cash-constrained, they slowed that down.
But I think their analysis is going to be, "What's the opportunity and what's the cost and benefit of waiting?" And the best example I could give you is, I think it was 2009, and it became so famous at IMAX, we called it the Avatar Effect, which is when it became clear how big a movie Avatar was going to be. Well, it wasn't clear until the end, but how successful it would be. The installs we had budgeted for the quarter were well exceeded because people wanted to get open for Avatar. And as I said to you earlier, the financial results were so good. You looked at the payback, and people opened before Avatar had such a higher ROI and such a shorter payback period.
And I like to think that the slate we have next year is so good, which you and I went through in some detail. Clearly, by the end of the year for Avatar, but I would think for movies like Jurassic World and Top Gun and Mission and the Marvel movies and the DC movies that they're going to want to be open. So you never know until that happens. And then the last part of your question was, "Who are the biggest parts of our backlog with?" And it's with a lot in terms of the new builds. I'm dealing with a lot of different people in different countries. Usually, the biggest exhibitor, so for example, in France, it's with Pathé. But then in Korea, it's with CJ. So mostly like that. But a lot of our backlog is also upgrades to our new digital system.
The largest counterparties in those agreements are AMC and Regal.
Can you talk a little bit more about IMAX's relationships with studios and exhibitors today? How is that evolving, particularly given changes to things like windowing? Are there any changes to the DMR or the joint revenue sharing agreements that exhibitors and studios have with IMAX because of things that are happening in the industry?
No, these tend to be relatively long, well, now two or three-year agreements. And they've been relatively consistent since we've been in business with the studios. One could argue that IMAX adds more value in a world of shorter windows, of 45-day windows instead of 90-day windows. And the reason for that is that IMAX helps create an event around a movie, helps it stand out from the pack and be special. And for the studios, more of their value chain is going to come by using the theatrical release sort of as a trailer for the streaming and whatever, PVOD, electronic sell-through, whatever the later windows are. So my view is, for example, if you look at the marketing put together for Dune, I mean, IMAX is front and center in a way I really haven't seen in my many years here.
I think that if your value chain is more weighted towards your ancillaries, you really have to make sure that it's launched the right way. Consumer studies show that people who see movies at IMAX like the movie better. They actually give it a better CinemaScore. I think the dynamic is quite good there. Maybe there's a little inside baseball. In the next, well, the rest of this year, I've seen more fighting over studios for IMAX slots than I've seen in a very long time, meaning that someone wants to release a movie this day, and someone else wants to release it on the same day. They'll say, "Well, then I'll move my movie to this day. Could you do it on that day?" I feel very good about where our deals are right now.
Great, and you mentioned AMC and Regal picking up some of the ArcLight theaters. And I think you're probably going to see more consolidation in the exhibition industry, particularly among some of the smaller players. So the big players like AMC, Cinemark, Regal, they're probably well-positioned to take market share. Can you talk about how these dynamics affect IMAX, if at all?
Yeah. I mean, I like to think they're positive. We have a little bit of experience with that. So when Cineworld in the U.K. bought Regal, Regal upped many more theaters than they had before. Or when AMC bought Odeon in the U.K. and then some other European territories, I think it was UCI, they upped the number of IMAX theaters in those territories that they acquired. Or CGV in Korea, when they bought chains in other areas, they upped their IMAX commitment. So I mean, it's not perfect, but most of our bigger clients are the acquirers in these situations. So I think as assets flow from the smaller chains and the smaller chains, sometimes they're not sophisticated enough to understand what IMAX will do for them. They're brand-centric.
So in the case of ArcLight, I think ArcLight thought the ArcLight brand had its own resonance, so they didn't have to do IMAX. But in general, virtually every acquisition, consolidation wave that's gone through has been good for us. So I hope that would happen. I certainly don't think it's negative. I can't because most of the smaller chains are the ones that are undercapitalized, are not really the core IMAX clients.
And one other theme I wanted to explore is just the domestic box office becoming more concentrated with the largest blockbusters representing a greater proportion of the total, potentially crowding out some of the small and mid-budget films. I think in the past, you've called this blockbusterization. Can you talk a little bit about the implications of this trend for IMAX, and do you see any reason for this trend to change at all?
It's a demonstrable trend even before the pandemic. You look at the number of movies and blockbusters or of the global box office in any given year, that's been going up for a decade. I think probably the pandemic accelerated that trend because I think if you're a studio, particularly if you have a streaming business on the side, which is most of them, you're going to want to release on theatrical films that will really benefit downstream from the IP that you've created. Again, Disney just put windows around its movies. You and I talked briefly about Shang-Chi as an example. I would think you would really want to focus your theatrical releases among the blockbusters where you could get revenues from all these windows.
One of the things, Michael, is I never understood, which is I get why Netflix went day-and-date with its movies because it didn't have a lot of valuable IP originally, but if you have IP and you could sell something five times across five windows, who's to say I'd rather sell it once? I don't think that's as good a model for them, so I think for these blockbusters, they're going to continue to be made, and I think that will benefit IMAX by the studios. In terms of one thing that we haven't talked about a lot, it's going to be interesting to see whether the streaming services decide to make their bigger movies available theatrically and whether they create some kind of a window around it.
Netflix sort of did that with The Irishman when they released it a little bit early and tried to create some buzz around it. I think, again, when you talk about streaming and theatrical and blockbusters, when you kind of go back in time, what built HBO and what built Netflix was releasing Hollywood blockbusters in an aftermarket and streaming, which they had a lot to do with that market or in HBO was cable. I think that still holds that creating blockbusters create a brand for your property and let it play over a longer time. So I think I have to admit, I'm hoping. I don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the streaming services jump into the blockbuster business with a different release pattern.
I know we're approaching time, but I did want to get two more questions in. First, on the CFO search, could you just give us a little bit of an update there and what you're looking for in an executive to take that role?
We're seeing people who are very active in it, as you know. Acting CFO is Joe Sparacio, who was CFO of IMAX for a fairly long time. So we're not on a short time fuse. My only short time fuse is Joe wanting to get back to his other life, which he reminds me from two offices down from me. But we have the luxury of having a terrific Interim CFO right now. It won't surprise you. The things that we're looking for are strong leadership, integrity, lots of good experience. And in this case, the good news is we don't have to settle because we have someone with those attributes here right now.
Great. And just as a closing question, IMAX is often associated with the exhibition industry, but there are a lot of differences, right? It's capital light, focused on a more narrow film slate and blockbusters, and there's a more diverse geographical footprint. Would you talk about some of the key differences here and how that translates into a different financial profile for IMAX versus the traditional theaters?
You mentioned some of them, but I'll cover them in a little bit more detail, Michael. One of them is we're in 84 countries. As the pandemic shows, we're much more diversified than anyone else in the world. We have exposure. We get to show different films. When the pandemic started, China was closed, but we had a profitable first quarter without China. For those of your team, I know you follow this, but we've had positive EBITDA for the last three quarters in a row. We weren't nearly as affected as exhibitors. We don't have high fixed costs. We're a licensed model. We license our technology to exhibitor partners. We don't pay rents to landlords. Our balance sheet. We have no net debt. We have $500 million in liquidity.
Our asset-light model, as soon as the business turned around, we turned around our financials. Even during the pandemic, I think our maximum cash burn in any one month was $10 million, which compares to over $100 million for many of the exhibitors. I think we're just an entirely different business. We have better margins. We have dual revenue sources. We get paid by the studio and by the exhibitor. We have very little credit exposure to any one particular entity. We have global brand recognition. I think probably Disney has certainly Disney has global brand recognition. But other than Disney, I don't know another kind of entertainment brand out of home that has the kind of recognition that IMAX does. We're in a sweet spot now, I think, which is premium branded entertainment as people readjust to what they want to do.
And I think they might be more picky about how they spend their money in this period. So different animal. We both show movies. Those are the similarities. But the financial characteristics and the business characteristics are very different.
Great. Well, we're a few minutes over. Rich, I want to thank you again for all of your time and your insights. It's an incredible privilege for me to be able to share the stage and speak with you. So thank you again. This was deeply appreciated.
Thank you, Michael. I appreciate it.