IMAX REPORTS RECORD 2010 PROFITS, PREDICTS NEW RECORD IN 2011

IMAX’s revenue and profit turned out to be as big as its screens in 2010, their highest in its 43-year history, the giant-screen company said today (Thursday). In a statement, IMAX reported that net income for the year increased to $100.8 million on revenue of $248.6 million versus $5.0 million/$171.2 million in 2009. Its profit in the fourth quarter came to $54.2 million, which was exactly what its total revenue came to a year earlier. “The fourth quarter of 2010 marked a strong finish to what was a record year for IMAX in virtually all respects,” said IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond. He particularly credited “the success of the company’s digital strategy” — that is, exhibiting films from cheap digital media rather than the enormous and costly film “platters” weighing more than a quarter of a ton for a feature film that were previously associated with the IMAX system. Gelfond predicted another record year in 2011 as he considered “our contracted-in theater backlog, our announced film slate, film [studio] deals we are working on and the pipeline of theater deals we are working on.”