New movie releases continue to perform above expectations. Deadpool & Wolverine’s domestic opening was a massive $211M and should exceed $1B at the end of this weekend. Its successors did $800M on average for their entire runs; Deadpool & Wolverine will finish 50% above those. Twisters opening was high at $80M and it’s on track for $350M in global box office. Despicable Me 4 will exceed $370M domestically–ahead of Despicable Me 2 and Despicable Me 3. Inside Out 2 continues to elevate, hitting $1.6B with $1.8B possible. The was expected soft summer, has turned out to be a blockbuster. As shown in the table below, Cinemark took market share, which reflects the audience mix for Q2 2024’s slate compared to Q1 2024 (and also compared to Q2 2023) and strong execution.
On the health of the industry and Cinemark’s outperformance, Cinemark CEO Sean Gamble said, “For the past three years now, we have witnessed example after example of outsized film performance across a diverse range of genres and non-traditional content that include a multitude of record-setting highs. These results provide a clear indication that consumer enthusiasm for elevated larger-than-life theatrical experiences remains strong and vibrant when compelling titles are brought to the big screen and marketed effectively. This performance trend was widely apparent in the first quarter and continued to be evident during 2Q and July.” Regarding Cinemark’s outperformance, Gamble said, “Our impressive second quarter results were amplified by the impact of our many ongoing initiatives to build audiences, grow new sources of revenue and hone our industry-leading operating capabilities. Additionally, our results also benefited from film content mix that skewed particularly well across our global circuit as well as minimal seating capacity constraints due to the reduced volume of film releases and associated attendance levels. Some examples of impactful drivers that helped elevate our results during the quarter and were derived from our many ongoing strategic initiatives include the following. We continued to earn high satisfaction ratings from approximately 95% of our guests surveyed in the U.S. due to our heightened levels of guest service. We further expanded the reach of our extensive and loyal customer base, growing our Movie Club membership 10% since our last update to over 1.3 million subscribers. We generated almost 10% of our domestic box office through non-traditional content by continuing to actively pursue emerging categories of films such as anime, multi-cultural titles and faith-based releases...We continue to benefit from the sustained investments we have made over time to develop and maintain the largest collection of high-quality assets in our markets. For instance, over the past decade, we have invested more than $675 million in high-return recliner conversions, resulting in the most extensive domestic recliner penetration of all major exhibitors and nearly 70% circuit wide. We have built Cinemark XD into the largest exhibitor-branded premium large format in the world with nearly 300 XD auditoriums across the U.S. and Latin America...We have also developed the largest footprint of D-BOX motion seats in the world that now extends across 365 auditoriums globally with associated revenue growth of 75% since the pandemic. Our circuit has long been regarded as having the leading site sound and overall presentation quality in the business, including our best-in-class Xenon projection technology, and we continue to raise that standard to the next level with our ongoing rollout of Barco laser projectors. And with the exception of 2020 through 2022, we have historically spent approximately $80 million to $100 million of capital expenditures per year to maintain the overall condition of our theaters, which is far beyond our major peers.”
