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Marcus Theatres, the nation’s no. 4 chain, saw losses in the March quarter grow to $6.3 million from $5.7 million on a softer box office and higher costs before A Minecraft Movie and Sinners reignited moviegoing in April.

Revenue rose 7.5% to $87.4 million due largely to four more operating days vs the prior year period.

The company cited higher film costs as a percentage of admissions revenues and higher labor expenses vs a strike-crippled Q1 2024.

Attendance rose 7% and average ticket prices fell 5% on the impact of pricing promotions like the $7 Everyday Matinee and Value Tuesday, and an “unfavorable ticket mix” with an increased number of family films. Captain America: Brave New World, Mufasa: The Lion King, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Dog Man and Moana 2 were the top performers.

Concession revenues per customer rose 2.9%.

“While the overall performance of the first quarter film slate was disappointing, the start to the second quarter has...

Cinemark, the nation’s third-largest theater chain, and smaller Marcus Theatres piled on strong financial results Thursday after sunny numbers from Imax on Wednesda –, all bright notes amid ongoing box office uncertainty.

Marcus shares popped by more than 10% on the numbers. The Milwaukee-based chain “achieved growth with a markedly improved film slate that played particularly well with audiences in our markets,” said chairman-ceo Greg Marcus. “As we look ahead to the remainder of the year and into 2025, we are encouraged by trends within both businesses, including an impressive array of high-quality films headed for the big screen this holiday season.”

Cinemark chief executive Sean Gamble said “strong, sustained consumer enthusiasm for shared, larger-than-life, theatrical experiences was once again on full display in the third quarter as film results far outpaced expectations, delivering the highest quarterly box office since the pandemic, which climbed to within 4% of 3Q19″ for the three months ended in September.

Marcus Theatres saw revenue and profit dip last quarter but is the latest exhibitor to report a soft April and May leading into a notable positive shift in June as the industry shakes off the impact of the Hollywood strikes last year.

CEO Greg Marcus noted that there weren’t fewer films in the first half, just not the right mix. “It has to be what I call a normal slate. If you release 100 films and not one of them is tentpole, that is not a normal slate,” he said on a post-earnings call with analysts. There were plenty of films in the earlier part of 2024, he said “and I’m glad they were putting movies out there. But not tentpoles.”

The market still needs big and small films. “You’ve got to take enough swings and you got to get people back in the habit,” he said. “Twenty years from now,...

In recent weeks, Kevin Costner embarked on a multicity tour promoting Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1, the first of four big-budget Westerns that he directs and stars in. He appeared on local morning shows, did press junkets and visited at least one military installation.

Costner also taped personal messages for various theater chains, all of which are based in America’s heartland. That included sitting down with Greg Marcus, the affable CEO of Marcus Theatres, for a custom Horizon video that’s airing in Marcus cinemas.

It’s the middle of the country that Costner and Warner Bros. are counting on to boost Horizon throughout the Fourth of July corridor and beyond. Last year, the indie film Sound of Freedom opened on July Fourth, coming out of nowhere to become one the biggest hits of summer thanks to Middle America. While the two movies couldn’t be more different, Horizon...

Marcus Corp. CEO Greg Marcus joked that the Milwaukee-based movie theater owner has hit on a new method for predicting box office.

“We’re going to be holding a séance next week to figure out what the theater business is going to look like next year,” Marcus said during the company’s third quarter earnings call with Wall Street analysts when asked for his outlook for 2024. “We don’t know! We have no clue. We don’t even know when we know what’s coming.”

Exhibitors and others in the industry have been constantly destabilized this year by the impact of the overlapping WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the latter of which is still ongoing. The labor impasses have caused a flurry of changes for movie production and release schedules. Combined with the ongoing recovery from Covid and a range of economic pressures, the industry has seen a whirlwind of unpredictable results in recent months,...

Sunday Am Final: Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie is lapping up $23M, a big win for Paramount and Spin Master, as the picture is part of a $14 billion global retail franchise which both companies get a nice cut from. And successful movies drive toy sales. It was part of Brian Robbins’ plan when he took over the top job at Paramount Pictures Studios to have family brands work at the box office, which also have a rainfall of cash in merchandise, particularly in an entertainment conglomerate that counts the powerful, and evergreen Nickelodeon brand. EntTelligence says Paw Patrol 2 drew 2.3M admissions, with close to half of the pic’s tickets being sold at child pricing.

Some of the stunts which Paramount did to bark up this latest sequel included getting the film in the Guiness Book of World Records with the most dogs in attendance at a movie screening,...

Marcus Corp. CEO Greg Marcus insisted today that dual Hollywood strikes are nowhere near as threatening to exhibition as Covid was amid hand-wringing that a second massive hit to movie theaters is unfolding.

A handful of release dates have shifted with actors unable to promote films given the SAG-AFTRA strike. The impact is “difficult, if not impossible, to handicap,” he acknowledged during a call with Wall Streeters after quarterly earnings.

But, he said, “Here’s what this isn’t. This isn’t anyone questioning whether [people] want to go to the movie theater. This isn’t Hollywood saying they are shifting movies to streaming, and suggesting the future is day-and-date releases. This isn’t facilities closed and people afraid to be together.”

“What this is, is a labor dispute. Does a business on the mend need this? No. But it doesn’t come close to what we went through.”

Of...

Theater owners are concerned about potential delays in 2023 movies due to the SAG-AFTRA strike and believe it could harm their business. The delay of major releases would be detrimental to theaters as they are just recovering from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The inability of actors to promote their projects and the refusal of AMPTP to negotiate with SAG-AFTRA could lead studios to consider delaying their fall releases, which theater owners warn would damage the movie industry.

Potential 2023 movie delays caused by the SAG-AFTRA spark ominous warnings from theater owners to studios. On July 13, SAG-AFTRA went on strike (joining the Writers Guild of America) following failed negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) over fair pay, streaming residuals, and the regulation of AI. The actors' strike, which prevents performers from promoting their projects, has caused the studios to delay many of their releases for...

Not this again. After the two years of havoc that Covid inflicted on their business, movie theater owners thought they were past the days of blank marquees. Studios, miraculously, have been releasing films at a regular rate. And better yet, people are showing up to see them. Not to mention “Barbenheimer” — the glorious, explosive, ecstatically meme-able phenomenon of “Barbenheimer”!

But then — what is the opposite of a deus ex machina? — came a pair of labor strikes that brought Hollywood to a standstill and now threaten to upend the release calendar in the back half of 2023. For cinema operators, it’s bringing back a dreaded sense of pandemic-era Ptsd, reviving memories of the long gaps in between new movies that kept people at home (and away from concession stands).

“We are enjoying this party and don’t know what comes next,” says Joe Masher, chief operating officer of Bow Tie Cinemas,...

It may have been implausible a few years, heck, even a few months ago, that tech giants like Apple and Amazon would spend billions on theatrical movies.

And yet, Apple is reportedly planning to invest $1 billion per year to make films that’ll play exclusively in cinemas. The news, which was first reported by Bloomberg, comes months after Amazon’s similar commitment to putting 12 to 15 new movies in theaters annually. Could it be that newer Hollywood players actually care about the big screen?

“Having multiple large streaming platforms decide they need theaters shows there is value to theatrical, which was the biggest concern,” says Eric Wold, a media and entertainment industry analyst with B. Riley Securities.

For Apple and Amazon, the move is not exactly a benevolent bid to help out beleaguered movie theaters; it’s a way to promote their respective streaming services. Ideally, the more attention that a...

After a disappointing late summer and fall, major movie theater chains pinned hopes on a run of tentpoles that could help prop up the box office — and their bottom lines — from Black Adam to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of Water. But, one by one, in reporting fourth-quarter earnings in February and early March, the top chains all posted revenue that fell short of even the comparable quarter in 2021, when the industry was in the thick of the pandemic.

While the impact of The Way of Water, the $2.2 billion grosser that opened Dec. 16, won’t be fully felt until exhibitors report first-quarter results in the spring, the fourth-quarter numbers aren’t encouraging. That’s especially so when studio executives, from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav to Paramount Global chief Bob Bakish, have touted the important flywheel effect of launching their tentpoles in theaters instead of sending...

Marcus Corporation CEO Greg Marcus says he’s encouraged by the recent diversity and consistency of theatrical films and is “not ready to throw in the towel yet” on the notion of box office returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Along with one of the top national movie theater circuits, the company also operates a string of hotel properties. Speaking on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call with Wall Street analysts, Marcus noted a run of “nice, fun, short mid-sized films” like A Man Called Otto. “Re-habitualizing the moviegoer” with a diverse range of film offerings will be key to the box office recovery, he said. “You can’t just feed us dinner — we need lunch and we need breakfast, too, to have a rounded nutritional diet.” Doing so will be a painstaking and incremental process, he conceded.

Marcus reported mixed earnings for the quarter, in part due to a downturn in...

The nation’s third largest theater chain saw sales jump 50 and losses narrow sharply last quarter, underscoring the rebound of moviegoing despite a sluggish release schedule in August and September.

“We have high confidence in the ongoing recovery of content and box office as delays caused by Covid fully subside, and studios derive increasing promotional and financial value from theatrical,” said CEO Sean Gamble. In an investor call following earnings, the chief executive took pains to lay out the main drivers of the business — three and clear: consumer interest in films; the availability of films; and the value of theatrical release to providers of filmed entertainment.

The first is a big ‘yes’ check — consumer interest is “vibrant,” Gamble said. As that becomes increasingly evident, “We see studios leaning more heavily back into theatrical.” That said, the pipeline is still limited by production lags from Covid and “will take a couple...

Marcus, the fourth largest U.S. movie chain, said a trickle of films for the three months ended in September impacted earnings but were offset by the recovered Marcus Hotel & Resorts, which surpassed pre-pandemic revenues. Both businesses were up from last year but theaters saw a slowdown from Q2 to Q3.

“This not only highlights the strength of the recovery in our hotels and resorts division but underscores the value of our diversified business model. As expected, Marcus Theatres was impacted by a lighter film slate during the quarter; however, customers continued to show their desire to come out to the movies for several films that delivered great performances. We are excited about the quality of new films releasing in the coming months, with anticipation building for the debut of Avatar: The Way of Water, the sequel to Avatar, the highest grossing film of all time,” said CEO Greg Marcus.

The nation’s fourth-largest cinema chain is testing a new subscription program called MovieFlex+ that includes a curated set of small and mid-sized films each week for no extra charge.

“We can’t live off just blockbusters,” chairman and CEO Greg Marcus tells Deadline. “We cannot just live off dinner. We need breakfast and lunch too.”

The launch of the 14.99 monthly service comes as the box office renaissance for wide-release studio franchises is clear, but whether that’s trickling down to smaller films less so. At issue is the long-term health of a theatrical ecosystem with breadth and depth of product.

Marcus began testing MovieFlex+ in two markets in January along with a general subscription plan, also new, called MovieFlex for 9.99 a month that offers one free film of choice. Both programs have deals on concessions and other perks. At two Columbus theaters, Crossroads and Pickering, where both programs are available,...

Greg Marcus said first-quarter sales for Marcus Theatres surged from a year ago; that the film slate, while improving, is still not back to where it was pre-Covid; and that while studios have committed to theatrical windows, big streamers have not despite — in his view — overwhelming arguments for cinematic release.

“We talk to all these guys. We are in discussions with them. We are figuring out how to work with their models. I don’t have anything to report today on this phone call. We are open to playing their films,” he said during Q&a with Wall Street analysts post earnings.

“It was never lost on me that, on day one, when Apple would release a new iPhone, people were lined up for blocks. They created the demand and restricted the supply and it worked so beautifully to their advantage,” Marcus said.

Shortchanging theatrical leaves money on the table,...

Marcus Theatres is transforming an auditorium at its Gurnee Mills theater outside Chicago into a sports bar with high-def monitors and food and drink starting with March Madness as chains experiment with new ways to attract patrons.

“I can’t think of a better place to watch these games,” said CEO Greg Marcus. Plans call for 12 big screen monitors with one game broadcast over speakers but up to eight events at a time available to select and watch by downloading an app. It’s not theatrical content and avoids the issue of sports rights. The exhibitor may pull out some theater seats to make room for a few high-tops, but will keep most of them in “because that’s what makes it special,” Marcus said on a call after the company’s latest earnings. Food and beverages will be delivered to seats.

Marcus Theatres earlier said it turned profitable for...

Greg Marcus, CEO of Marcus Corp., was shocked when Arclight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres went dark. “I happened to notice that. It caught my attention,” he joked. “I said, ‘What? Arclight is not reopening?’ Arclight’s reopening. I’ll take that bet with anybody who wants to bet me on that. Those theaters are so productive nationally that they will reopen. I just don’t know who will control them. We certainly welcome those discussions.”

“There’s nothing to report right this second, but we are open and available for discussions,” he told investors on a call to discuss first quarter earnings where execs stressed that as the economy reopens, Marcus is looking for opportunities to grow its theater network.

Decurian, owner of the Arclight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres announced last month the chain won’t be reopening even as Los Angeles is. Its crown jewel is the Hollywood Arclight on Sunset Boulevard,...

Marcus Corp., which runs the fourth-largest movie theater circuit in the U.S., posted fourth-quarter results below Wall Street forecasts, but execs point to brighter days in the next few months.

“If the film schedule holds,” CFO Doug Neis said during a conference call with analysts, “we have much higher hopes that we’re going to have a real summer season.” He noted an encouraging move by Sony, which bucked the tide of films being pushed out of the summer, with Peter Rabbit 2 shifting to May 14 from a prior release date in June. Even if grosses don’t return to 2019 levels, he said, the dormancy of 2020 will be in the past.

Revenue plunged 82% in the quarter ending December 31, to $36.7 million, and adjusted net losses reached $1.22 compared with a year-ago profit of 33 cents a share. The consensus forecast by analysts called for revenue of $62.8 million, and it anticipated a net...