Exhibition giant Cinemark posted strong second quarter revenue and earnings gains on the strength of its summer box office on Friday.
Overall revenue rose 28 percent year-over-year to $941 million, as admissions revenue jumped 27.7 percent to $467.1 million and concession revenue rose 29 percent to $377.7 million. Cinemark posted its biggest domestic Memorial Day weekend ever as tentpoles like Lilo & Stitch and Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning played at its multiplexes.
Cinemark also pointed to a nearly 16 percent increase in attendance to 57.9 million patrons during the three months to June 30, 2025 as other tentpoles like Thunderbolts, Sinners and How to Train Your Dragon passed through its theaters.
“Amid this positive trajectory, Cinemark’s execution stood out once again in the second quarter, with outperforming results that are indicative of our advantaged market position and the continued impact we are deriving from our strategic initiatives,” Sean Gamble, Cinemark’s president and CEO said in prepared remarks during a morning analyst call.
He also talked about plans to add more premium screens to Cinemark’s U.S. and Latin America circuits amid the Hollywood box office recovery. That includes a deal to add 20 high end ScreenX theaters via a partnership with South Korea’s CJ 4DPlex that followed the earlier installation of new D-BOX motion seat auditoriums.
“We continue to lean into growing the volume of upgrades we provide our guests that appeal to audiences who want a further enhanced and differentiated experience,” Gamble told analysts about his company’s individually branded PLF screens.
Asked to discuss a recent media report that Cinemark and rival mega exhibitors were in early discussions about launching a joint premium large format brand to compete against the giant screen experience offered by Imax, Gamble told analysts: “There are numerous fantastic PLF experiences that are available to movie goers across the U.S. and around the world, including Imax, which is a tremendous experience.”
“Clearly, when the industry conversations about PLF have taken place, which aren’t new, by the way, they’ve largely been focused on how to most effectively market all large screen formats to grow the pie and unlock incremental upside, not as a challenge to Imax in general,” Gamble added.
His comments come against the backdrop of Imax riding the premium gold rush at the local multiplex by continuing to roll out Hollywood movies shot with Imax cameras, and backed by the marketing muscle of the major studios. Gamble argued the industry needed to market all premium screen formats, and not get hung up on the competitive challenge from Imax.
“It really boils down to the particular theater, the size of the screen, the market, what’s in the market, the demographics, all those things in terms of what’s the optimal path to choose one (PLF) versus another,” he told analysts. Talk of PLF screens is complicated by mega circuits like Cinemark having their own individually branded PLFs, as well as operating Imax screens and and emerging formats ScreenX and 4DX.
The second quarter financial results came as Cinemark, the third-largest theater circuit in the U.S. behind AMC Theatres and Regal Entertainment Group, continues to recover at the box office coming out of the pandemic and possibly return to pre-COVID levels of releases. Getting there will be helped by new players like Apple and Amazon MGM Studios, as well as independent studios like A24 and Neon, adding more to the overall Hollywood movie pipeline.
Gamble cited the successful recent box office for the Formula One movie F1 being a major theatrical win for Apple Original Films and distribution partner Warner Bros. But he also pointed to no movement as yet by Netflix to grow its occasional short theatrical runs for movie titles: “We don’t have any awareness of their plans to shift gears at this stage.”
Gamble also talked up possible mergers and acquisitions activity to continue growing his company’s market share, indicating Cinemark was actively in the market kicking tires with an eye to potential deal making. “It boils down to what opportunities are out there and what are high confidence types of potential M&A situations,” he argued.