Imax CEO Talks Hollywood Strikes Shaking Up Theatrical Release Schedule: “We’ll Fill Things In”

Etan Vlessing
·2 min read
1
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Imax CEO Richard Gelfond says the giant screen technologies company is well prepared to weather hanges to Hollywood’s theatrical release schedule due to the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes.

“Imax is an incredibly nimble company. The strike is going on. There’s been a lot of publicity about it,” Gelfond told the Goldman Sachs Communcacopia + Technology Conference.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Hollywood studio marketers have had to scrap media tours amid the dual Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes, with guilds forbidding their members from promoting any movie from a struck company. Release schedule changes to date include MGM pushing back the September release of Luca Guadagnino’s awards hopeful Challengers, starring Zendaya, to 2024, while Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment have done the same with Dune 2.

In place of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune sequel this fall, Imax is set to screen alternative Hollywood tentpoles like Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels, Lionsgate’s latest Hunger Games sequel and Apple’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

“Now that it moved, we can play all three and we have a great title next year in Dune,” Gelfond told the investors conference. Imax will also be screening the upcoming Taylor Swift concert tour movie in October.

“Our customers don’t sit around and shake their heads and I certainly don’t do that, because given what we are and what our brand represents, It’s highly likely that we’ll fill things in,” he added.

Imax will also program local language films in select markets in the event of continuing disruption to the Hollywood theatrical release schedule from the dual strikes.

“We have a lot of levers to push. So, no, I don’t think people are that worked up about the strikes,” Gelfond concluded.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter

Click here to read the full article.