Exhibitor stocks jumped on Monday after Universal/Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie delivered a record-breaking global opening weekend.
AMC Theatres parent company AMC Entertainment Holdings’ stock climbed by 6.9% to $5.24, while Cinemark’s gained 6.6% to reach $16.21. Regal parent Cineworld trades on the London Stock Exchange and did not report as it is still the long Easter holiday weekend in the UK.
Shares at Imax, which last week reported the biggest first quarter in its history, increased by 5% to $20.85.
The astonishing weekend performance by The Super Mario Bros. Movie will have been greatly encouraging to executives in the exhibition and distribution communities.
They are watching closely to see how family films fare at the box office and have been concerned over the dearth of titles in the wake of the pandemic, when families got used to watching first-runs online.
Disney under former CEO Bob Chapek formalised a release pattern whereby family films would go straight to Disney or open day-and-date with the theatrical release.
Hollywood executives worry that the cinema-going habit is being lost among certain demographics, including older audiences.
The weekend bow by The Super Mario Bros. Movie earned $377.6m worldwide in the biggest global opening weekend by an animated feature and the biggest release of the year-to-date.
This was also the biggest Illumination opening of all-time, the biggest video game adaptation debut, and Universal’s fourth biggest day-and-date global bow behind Fast & Furious 8 on $543m, Jurassic World on $525m, and Fast & Furious 7 on $398m.
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‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie” breaks all international box office records; “Air” floats to $31m debut
