Imax Box Office Revenue Falls Further Since Last Year’s Peak

Imax theatres are Hollywood’s premiere screens. The best aspect ratio and colors are like no other. Many films, such as Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film Oppenheimer are also shot on Imax cameras to bring out the life of the characters and the story. 

Imax theatres are the place diehard film fans go to experience cinematic beauty like no other, but this year, Imax is struggling even with great visual films like Avatar: The Way of Water doing the rounds. Even China has started to open back up to Hollywood, and yet, the theatres still haven’t come up to last year’s peak. So what’s wrong?

Imax and Avatar

Avatar: The Way of Water had the highest first-run collections on massive Imax screens because of the sheer nature of the film. The beautiful blue world of Pandora being explored by Cameron’s cameras was the perfect fit for an Imax theatre.

 The film made about $253 million at the Imax box office. In fact, the last two weeks of December 2022 made Imax an additional $140 million. Cameron’s Avatar sequel has been predominantly profitable for the theatres, and yet, the results are still missing.

Imax made a total of $98 million in the fourth quarter from their box-office earnings which is much less than the previous year’s quarter—$108.6 million. Box office earnings also came from the reopening of Chinese theatres. Imax made about $61.3 million from the Chinese theatres last quarter. But it was nothing compared to the 2019 box office collection of $1.03 billion.

China helped Imax box-office earnings with its hit local film Wandering Earth 2, which became the highest-earning local language film in China. Imax has about 180 theatres in the country that originally intended to close their doors to Hollywood films this year as well. 

Thanks to the massive performance and public reception of Avatar: The Way of Water in China, the country decided to let more Hollywood films screen in Imax theatres. The films included Marvel’s most recent entry Antman and The Wasp: Quantamania, as well as the previous Marvel film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The inclusion of these films in Chinese theatres helped boost revenues for Imax. 

Imax Theaters Across The Globe

Thanks to the pandemic, the film industry suffered a lot, especially in China, where the outbreak first began. Now, even with falling revenues, Imax theatres are resurfacing. Though this last quarter was a bit underwhelming, Imax technologies are always going to be in demand everywhere in the world. Here’s what CEO Richard Gelfond had to say about their box-office revenues from this year:

“As a result, we are seeing encouraging signs of increasing demand for new and upgraded Imax systems around the world, including recent multi-system agreements in Japan and Indonesia. And the sequel is helping lead the dramatic resurgence of our business in China — which has taken a complete, positive 180-degree turn in the span of just a few months,” he said. 

Imax theatres in Asia are also screening all the films. The cinema giant is preparing to open up more theatres in countries like India, Indonesia, and Latin America. Since the Avatar 2 fanbase is ever-increasing, Imax theatres only stand to gain from it. The film has already crossed Cameron’s Titanic to become the third-highest-earning film in the world. 

The only other contenders the film has now are Avengers: Endgame and Avatar, the predecessor of the sequel itself. Meanwhile, Imax has little to no competition when it comes to the quality of the picture on the screen. Hopefully, this year will see more Imax screens opening in many countries across the world.