Cineplex has reported that it incurred a $9 million loss in its fourth quarter, which ended December 31. This compared with a profit of $10.2 million a year earlier.
The quarter spanned a usually busy period for movie watching as Academy Awards bait is typically debuted in the latter half of the year. But last year, the entertainment business faced several unique factors, including lengthy Hollywood strikes that threatened the movie release schedule.
Taylor Swift’s theatrical movie of her hit concert The Eras tour was in cinemas in October and was welcome news for theatres — a view Cineplex chief executive Ellis Jacob still maintains. "Everybody was kind of worried about where our business was going and with the lack of content due to the strikes, [Swift's film] was a great injection of an event that brought our guests out in a big way," he said.
Based on the box office, the film was Cineplex's top movie in the fourth quarter and the industry’s biggest concert film of all time. It contributed to Cineplex's fourth-quarter revenue ticking up to $315.1 million from $309.9 million in the last three months of 2022.
Box office revenue per patron was $12.90, down 1.2 per cent from $13.06 a year earlier, while concession revenue per patron was $9.28, up from $8.93 in the same quarter in 2022.