Cinemark Hit With $39 Million First Quarter Loss After Box Office Slowdown

The box office’s first quarter slump took its toll on Plano, Texas-based Cinemark, as the theater chain reported a $38.9 million loss for the first quarter on a revenue total of $540.7 million.

That revenue total is approximately 6% down from the $579 million reported in the year-ago period, and comes as the overall domestic box office sunk to $1.4 billion, down 11.6% from the year prior.

More key results below:

EPS: Cinemark reported a diluted loss attributable to shareholders of 32 cents per share. That’s worse than Zacks Investment Research’s projections of a 22 cents per share loss.

Attendance: As one might expect, a box office downturn brings a drop in attendance, sliding to 37 million tickets sold across Cinemark’s multinational network. The chain reported quarterly attendance of 40 million in the first quarter of 2024, and admissions revenue has dropped 9% to $264.1 million.

Concessions: Fewer moviegoers also meant a year-over-year decline of 6% in concessions revenue to $210.4 million. But spending per patron remains high at $7.9 million.

Cinemark’s leadership remained bullish. “Cinemark once again delivered outsized box office results in the first quarter, surpassing industry benchmarks both domestically and internationally, despite a suppressed box office environment that was impacted by lingering effects of the 2023 Hollywood strikes,” said president CEO Sean Gamble.

While the previous three opening quarters saw at least one film gross more than $200 million domestically, the highest grossing film of the first quarter was Marvel Studios’ “Captain America: Brave New World” with $196 million. The next highest grossing film released within the quarter was Universal/DreamWorks’ “Dog Man” at $96 million, with holiday holdovers “Mufasa” ($126 million) and “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” doing much of the heavy lifting.

Historically, the top grossing film of the first quarter usually comes from March, with movies such as “The Batman” and “Dune: Part Two” finding major pre-summer success. But the highest grossing film of March was Disney’s box office bomb “Snow White” with just $68.2 million, contributing to the worst non-pandemic March in 30 years with just $397 million grossed.

But Cinemark offered strong guidance for the next quarter, which is already off to a big start with an $873 million total for the month of April. Warner Bros. is largely to thank for that incredible lead-in to the summer with $383 million from “A Minecraft Movie” and $141 million from “Sinners.”

During a call with analysts on Friday, Gamble said “A Minecraft Movie” was the best three-day opening for a family movie in Cinemark’s history, suggesting the downsides of the first quarter were behind it.

As for uncertain economic and political conditions, Gamble said “in our experience that in strained economic periods, people still opt for out-of-home experiences.” He added movies allows people to “unwind, disconnect and escape.”

Paid first quarterly dividend since the pandemic, given the health of our company and positive outlook.

What’s more, Cinemark in the first quarter paid its first dividend to shareholders since the pandemic and executed a $200 million share buyback, reducing overall outstanding share count to 7.9 million.

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