Who won the Barbenheimer faceoff? Actually, it was IMAX

It turns out this summer’s Barbenheimer craze was a huge win for IMAX. 

Earlier this week, IMAX Corporation posted its third-quarter earnings, reporting a revenue of $103.9 million, up 51% from last year and surpassing analyst expectations of $98.7 million. The results continue to signal that Hollywood’s box office recovery efforts from the impact of the pandemic could be working. 

During the earnings call, CEO Richard Gelfond attributed the company’s growth to summer blockbusters like Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Christopher Nolan’s three-hour epic biopic thriller, Oppenheimer. Gelfond said Oppenheimer was “the big driver” this quarter. The film has grossed more than $184 million at the IMAX global box office so far and is a top 5 IMAX release of all time, according to the company. Overall, it has made more than $4 billion at the global box office. 

Looking back, the movie was a phenomenon of sorts. While director Christoper Nolan’s films generally do well at the box office, Oppenheimer generated more money than his last release, Tenet, which came out during the height of the pandemic. Currently, Oppenheimer is Nolan’s third highest-grossing domestic release following 2008’s The Dark Knight and 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises. But the astronomical success of Oppenheimer feels different. Of course, it benefitted partially from the viral social media attention of Barbenheimer, which saw Barbie and Oppenheimer go head-to-head at the box office and brought dressed-up fans out in droves for the occasion. The opening weekend brought in $235.5 million collectively for the two films with Oppenheimer earning $82.4 million. Separate from Barbie, Oppenheimer generated a significant hype for IMAX 70mm, a format Nolan has championed since 2008’s The Dark Knight and which he pushed as the “best possible experience” to view the biopic. For Oppenheimer, it reportedly spanned 11 miles of film stock and weighed 600 pounds. In the United States alone, there are only 30 movie theater locations that offer IMAX 70mm. Its limited availability resulted in some moviegoers traveling hours just to experience the film in its intended format, while sold out showings led to people reselling the tickets for up to hundreds and thousands of dollars. The high demand led to theater chains extending the 70mm IMAX run for an additional few weeks. 

Earlier in the summer, Puck News reported that Tom Cruise was fighting with exhibitors for more IMAX screens for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which came out a few weeks before Nolan’s Oppenheimer, emphasizing how much Cruise was banking on IMAX to generate a sizable of revenue for his latest action installment. According to BoxofficePro.com Chief Analyst Shawn Robbins, pre-pandemic years showed that premium theatrical formats were increasing in popularity — and IMAX has become the most preferred theatrical experience for moviegoers for providing an immersive and unique experience. “Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has been the latest literal and figurative poster film of those trends as the filmmaker himself has championed the format’s creative values for many years,” Robbins told Fast Company. “His very broad fan base listens when he advocates for something and creates a work of art specifically designed for that canvas.”

“In the case of Oppenheimer itself, the film was a game changer at a time when Hollywood and global cinema arguably needed it most,” Robbins added. “It’s never a surprise to see superheroes and mega-budget, action-driven movies perform well in premium formats. For a three-hour biographical thriller centered around compelling character development to generate the kind of business Oppenheimer has, though, simply reaffirms to studios that audiences want the industry to take bigger swings with a variety of content on the big screen.”

However, Gelfond said during that call that while Oppenheimer “was the cornerstone of our performance, it was hardly the only building block.” In other parts of the world, he pointed to the success of the local release of Creation of Gods Part 1 in China, which earned more than $32 million in IMAX. Looking ahead, Gelfond seemed optimistic about IMAX’s future especially with some of recent and upcoming theatrical releases. Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, which premiered this month, has earned more than $13 million for IMAX globally. Gelfond hopes to continue riding the concert film wave with the December release of Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour movie, which he said has shown strong presales so far. Then, there’s Apple TV+’s Martin Scorcese-directed historical epic Killers of the Flower Moon, which premiered last week to $44 million at the global box office, $5.1 million of which came from 750 IMAX screens. While experts predict the Scorcese film won’t be as massive as Nolan’s, it is still expected to do well given its promising start. According to a market research firm CinemaScore, nearly half (46%) of the audience on opening night were under the age of 35. On TikTok, which is heavily dominated by Gen Z, users have documented their experiences watching Killers of the Flower Moon (and Oppenheimer) in IMAX. 

Next month, fans have Ridley Scott’s Napoleon to look forward to, which, like Killers of the Flower Moon, is also distributed by Apple. “We’re particularly pleased with our indexing on Killers given this is our first release with Apple—which plans to spend $1 billion annually on theatrical releases with the transcendent scope and scale you’d expect from such a visionary company,” Gelfond said during the call. Dune: Part Two, which was pushed from its original release date next month to March 15, 2024, due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, is another highly anticipated film expected to bring audiences out to IMAX theaters.

Alicia Reese, vice president of equity research at Wedbush Securities, told Fast Company that IMAX is embedded in these films’ marketing campaigns and when films like Oppenheimer see extraordinary success, there’s a big return on marketing spend. 

“As more filmmakers utilize IMAX DNA, and as IMAX pushes deeper into foreign language content—which is more financially efficient—I would expect to see further margin expansion,” Reese said.

BoxofficePro.com’s Robbins added that he believes IMAX will continue to thrive in the next few years as the theatrical industry continues to rebuild. “As we’ve seen studios fighting to secure time on these screens in an increasingly competitive ecosphere, I firmly believe premium formats such as IMAX are near or at the epicenter of the future of moviegoing, and that theatrical exhibitors would do well to continue expanding their auditorium footprints,” Robbins said.

In an interview from January 2022, Gelfond told Fast Company, “Theater owners have to think about what the future of cinema looks like. Some of them have done it, that’s one reason IMAX has been successful. And premium cinema is taking up a much larger share of the market. IMAX is getting greater and greater market share.” With the success of Oppenheimer, it’s clear that nearly two years later, movie goers still have a desire to experience some of today’s newest and biggest films in a larger than life format.