00:00Great year all around for IMAX specifically. You had some big releases that helped to sort of lift you up.
00:07As you look into 2026, you're already starting off the year with that long-awaited Avatar pick, which is doing well.
00:13But you've got some other big movies on the slate coming up this year.
00:18Are those movies going to have the same impact on your bottom line as we saw in 2025?
00:24I think they'll have a bigger impact than they did in 2025.
00:27So when you look at our biggest movies of 2025, they're not the ones you would think of.
00:33So there's Nezha 3 coming out of China. There's Demon Slayer coming out of Japan.
00:39There's F1, which was the Brad Pitt racing movie.
00:43Those are not like when you start a year. Oh, my God.
00:46But when you go into 2026 and what you know, as you said, Avatar is doing extremely well right now, especially outside the United States.
00:55It's really crushing it. And then you've got a new Mandalorian Star Wars movie.
01:00You've got Chris Nolan's The Odyssey, which is the first movie ever filmed exclusively with IMAX cameras.
01:07Completely, you have Narnia, which we're doing with Netflix, which is being released first in IMAX for a month.
01:13And then on Netflix, something that's never been done before.
01:16And then Dune 3 at the end of the year, in addition to a lot of things.
01:20So when you would sit here today versus a year ago, it looks much better than it did a year ago.
01:27I know we've talked in the past about the idea of the relationship you have with directors,
01:31and particularly those directors like Nolan, who really wants that sort of massive theatrical experience,
01:36and they feel they can only get it from a technology like IMAX here.
01:40Are you seeing more directors, and more importantly, younger directors, actually embrace the format as well?
01:45We are very much so.
01:46So we can either take films that were shot in regular aspect ratios and release them in IMAX,
01:53or we could use IMAX cameras.
01:55We have a program called a Film for IMAX program.
01:59So in 25, we had more of those than we ever had in our history.
02:02And we had more in 26 than we had in 25.
02:06And a lot of the filmmakers were kind of younger ones doing it with IMAX cameras for the first time.
02:11So Ryan Coogler did Sinners with IMAX cameras, and there's much more demand than there was.
02:19Yeah, I mean, that dance scene, which everyone talked about, and then the cameras that he had to use to set that up anyway.
02:24Yeah, there you go.
02:25It was fantastic.
02:26I am curious about what you make about what's going on in your broader industry, though,
02:29because IMAX, of course, a clear, bright spot when you think about your 2025 numbers.
02:35But Variety reporting that you take a look at the domestic box office falling short of a projected $9 billion in 2025.
02:42I mean, what do you think is going on with movie theaters overall?
02:46So, again, you know, you said it, but I have to say it again.
02:51So the movie theater traditional box office has nothing to do with the IMAX box office.
02:57So 25 was a record for us, up 13% from the previous record before that.
03:05And we're a diversified global platform.
03:07So the U.S. is about one-third of our box office.
03:10As I said, our biggest movies came from overseas.
03:13This is a traditionally slower time of year, but it's Chinese New Year.
03:18Well, we have a very big platform, and good releases coming up in February.
03:24So, you know, for what, you know, the movie business is an up-and-down business.
03:29I know, I like the TV business, which you guys know something about.
03:32But the IMAX business is a different business.
03:35We're a platform.
03:36Last year, we had a record 130 pieces of content.
03:39So we have alternative content, like concerts, we have foreign language content, we have sports content, a lot of local language content.
03:48So it's just a completely different model.
03:51So maybe to circle back to your question, I think maybe North American Exhibition has to think about who they are and what they do in a different way and play a more diversified slate, which is what we do.
04:03Well, you mentioned, you know, it's an up-and-down business, and I'd love to situate this conversation in the context of what we're seeing when it comes to the economy.
04:11Still stubbornly high inflation.
04:13It doesn't seem to be taking a bite out of your numbers, of course, when it comes to IMAX.
04:17But you think about past economic cycles that you've lived through, potentially a weakening job market coming up.
04:23How does that typically translate into what you see?
04:26So, unfortunately, or fortunately, I've been here over 30 years, so I've been through a number of cycles.
04:33And through every recession, we've done better than we did the year before.
04:38So we seem pretty recession-resistant, and the movie business in general is pretty recession-resistant.
04:44And again, because we're global, you just, you know, only one-third of our revenues are from North America.
04:50So you can't just really correlate it to the economic cycle.
04:54So, you know, 25 wasn't exactly a boom year throughout the year, and our business was very strong.
05:01So I don't think it really correlates to the economic cycle.
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