Name: China Is Really Important to IMAX’s Success
Uploaded: 2016-04-07
Duration: 3 min 32 s
Description: And CEO Richard Gelfond says business is only getting bigger

China has been a huge business from Imax, so tell us why. China is such a big business for Imax for a few reasons. One, we hit it at just the right time, when the multiplex boom was really taking off. Number two, we went into China trying to make the Chinese our partners, so we tried to create win- win situations, which we did. And three, cinema and entertainment has been growing so rapidly with the growth of the discretionary income. We were able to capitalize on that. The Chinese people like going to the movies, you have 300 theaters open in China. You say more to come, tell us a little more about your growth plan. Well we have another 250 theaters in backlog. Which means they are signed and ready to roll out. The activity is as strong as it's been, so we all read about the slowdown in the economy but we're not seeing that, we're seeing lots more IMAX theatres open and we're also doing Chinese films in IMAX and Chinese Consumers like seeing Chinese films, not just hollywood films. Let's talk a little bit about the Chinese economy, because we get reports everyday about this severe slow down in China that a cutback in business and spending and all of that. You don't see that it could eventually hit the Chinese movie business and box office sales. Well in general movies are a fairly recession resistant. Category. When you look at 2008, 2009 in the US movies did well, people may cut vacations or restaurants but it's an affordable luxury. Also, this year if you look at the box office in China through the end of February, we were up over 50 % year over year on our revenues in China. And also the general Chinese box office, for Chinese New Year, that week was up 83 % year over year, so we haven't seen it. You have predicted that China will be the biggest moving market by 2017. That's just a year away. Bigger than the US. Why do you say that? Well, there's all ready 35, 000 screens open in China. And they're on their way to 40 very shortly, which is the number of screens in the US. And I think it's just a matter of numbers. You look at what the gross. You enlarge the theater footprint which is already in backlog, not just for IMAX and the whole industry. And you do the math, and the math says the Chinese box office will pass the US box office. And are these American movies, or Chinese made movies, or both? It's actually both. The Chinese have a quota of about 35 Hollywood movies that are allowed to come in. To China so those come in. But there's also a very good movie industry in China. And if you look at the last year or so, they keep breaking records for highest grossing Mandarin film on a regular basis. So they've really started to develop their own Film industry. One very quick anecdote is that Matt Damon stars in a film called The Great Wall, which is completely made in China. So, I think you'll see Chinese production continue to increase. Well, that's really amazing. What does this mean for the American movie industry, how disruptive is this going to be? The U. S. studios are starting to react, so Warner Brothers recently joint venture with the company called CMC to create a studio over in China. And more and more production is coming there. So I think it won't be a short term disruption. But over the long term, I think Hollywood's gonna have to adapt. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

And CEO Richard Gelfond says business is only getting bigger

China Is Really Important to IMAX’s Success

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CEO Richard Gelfond says business is only getting bigger.