PRESS RELEASE
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LOS ANGELES – Feb. 20, 2018 – IMAX Corporation (NYSE:IMAX) today announced that Marvel Studios’ Black Panther pounced into IMAX® theatres with a record-setting $35 million four-day global debut on 676 screens (excluding China), making it the largest opening ever for an IMAX release in February. Domestically, Black Panther set a new February and Marvel IMAX record, grossing $23.5 million in four days on 404 IMAX domestic screens.
“Black Panther has become part of the zeitgeist as well as a global box office sensation,” said Greg Foster, CEO of IMAX Entertainment and Senior Executive Vice President, IMAX Corp. “We extend a big congratulations to our friends, director Ryan Coogler, Kevin Feige and teams Disney and Marvel, for creating a remarkable film that continues to beat expectations every step of the way. Audiences around the world have truly embraced the differentiated IMAX experience and with stellar reviews and incredibly strong word-of-mouth, we look forward to the film’s continued success in IMAX – especially as it broadens to other markets.”
International IMAX weekend results for the film over the same period reached $11.5 million from 272 international sites. IMAX locations in Nigeria, Kenya and Indonesia all reported their best opening weekends ever with other notable overseas markets including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sweden, Korea and Denmark. The film is scheduled to open in additional territories including Russia (Feb. 22), where the film will receive a four-day-early release in IMAX, as well as Japan (March 1) and China (March 9).
While Black Panther dominated the global box office, three local-language titles took center stage in China during the Chinese New Year four-day period. Detective China Town 2, Monster Hunt 2 and Operation Red Sea shared IMAX screens and generated a combined record $18 million –representing a 60 percent increase in IMAX box office over last year’s holiday period. In total, IMAX posted a combined global box office of $53 million over the four-day period, marking the second-highest-grossing weekend in the Company’s history.
Foster continued: “This weekend’s China results clearly highlight the benefits of our new, multi-title strategy. By providing Chinese audiences with a greater variety of high-quality content during the Chinese New Year period, we were able to capitalize on audience preference and maximize our box office returns, which were up 60 percent over last year’s holiday period. We look forward to these films’ continued successful runs over the coming days as well as the upcoming release of Black Panther in China.”
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