The giant-screen exhibitor, led by CEO Richard Gelfond, pointed to a strong mix of Hollywood and local-language Asian market movies.


Giant-screen exhibitor Imax on Thursday reported higher third-quarter earnings, due largely to a strong Hollywood and local- language film slate.


Imax reported earnings attributable to shareholders of $9 million, up 80 percent from a year-earlier $5 million. The adjusted earnings per share came to 21 cents, compared with 14 cents per share in the year-ago period, beating analysts' consensus forecast of 20 cents.


Quarterly revenue rose 5 percent to $86.4 million, compared to $82.1 million a year earlier, and fell just shy of the analyst forecast for $87.6 million.


The third-quarter film release slate at Imax had a balance of Hollywood blockbusters like Spider-Man: Far From Home and The Lion King and local language films like the Chinese animated hit Ne Zha, which reached $35.5 million in box office during the latest three months, and the Japanese hit Weathering With You.


Imax's global box office rose 19 percent to $246.1 million, against $206.5 million last year, with domestic box office during the latest quarter rising 23 percent to $76.5 million, while the greater China box office was $76.4 million and the rest of the world box office was $93.2 million.


Imax continues to bet heavily on China, even as rising trade and tariff tensions between the U.S. and the Asian country worry investors. "We're having an extremely good year in China," Imax CEO Richard Gelfond told analysts during a morning call, as he pointed to enhanced marketing and a stronger movie slate, both in local language and Hollywood titles, as key revenue drivers.


He added local language Chinese titles increasingly have higher production budgets and varying genres, including animated fare, for overall better quality offerings.


Gelfond also discussed his backing for AMC's Stubs A-List and other cinema chain movie subscription services. "We've concluded that it's helped us in terms of revenue and attendance. To the extent any of these plans provide a subsidy or incentive to go to Imax, they seem to be working and moving people into the premium category. It's early, but we're feeling positive," he told analysts.


The giant-screen exhibitor's commercial theater network grew 9 percent in size, with signings across the U.S., U.K., France, India, Japan, Malaysia, the Middle East and elsewhere as Imax remains a standard bearer in the large-format business.


"We are on track for our best year ever at the global box office," said Gelfond in a statement that accompanied his company's latest financial results. "In China our box office is up 27 percent in [local currency] through early October, and we recently grew our box office by more than 160 percent during the pivotal National Day holiday. And we look forward to the highly anticipated Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the final installment of the Star Wars saga, in December."


Next year, Imax plans a record number of releases filmed using its proprietary cameras, including No Time to Die, Wonder Woman 1984 and Christopher Nolan's Tenet as the company works to get more Hollywood directors to shoot in its giant-screen format. Imax also forecast low double-digit growth in its global box office for 2019 over the $1.03 billion in global box office it had reported for 2018.


Said Gelfond: "Looking ahead to 2020, we continue to build out a strong slate headlined by a record number of releases filmed in Imax and proven franchise properties, demonstrating our long-standing relationships with world-class creators, our ability to create new opportunities to drive Imax market share on key titles, and growing demand for our end-to-end technology."