Tepid Box Office Prompts Analysts to Cut Theater Estimates

(Bloomberg) -- Movie-theater companies may be missing the power of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

After strong domestic box-office performance earlier in the year, led by the historic success of “Avengers: Endgame,” third-quarter performance is looking soft, analysts said, prompting two firms to trim their estimates on theater chains.

MKM Partners lowered its third-quarter revenue and Ebitda estimates on both AMC Entertainment Holdings and Cinemark Holdings, citing the weaker-than-expected U.S. box office. Analyst Eric Handler wrote that based on results in July and August, he now expects the domestic third-quarter box office to rise 2.5% from the year-ago period, compared with a prior view of 10% growth.

Shares of Cinemark dropped 1.4% in Tuesday trading.

Handler wrote that “our biggest concern right now” with AMC is that estimates may also be too high for 2020. He said the domestic box office could be down 4% next year, as it faces difficult comparisons with major hits from earlier in 2019, including “Avengers.” He has a buy rating on Cinemark but trimmed his price target by $2 to $43.

Shares of AMC slipped 0.1% on Tuesday, though the stock has risen more than 30% from a July low.

While there were some sizable blockbusters in the third quarter, including “The Lion King,” it also featured a soft debut for “Hobbs & Shaw,” while “It: Chapter Two” had a weaker opening weekend than its predecessor.

According to Bloomberg Intelligence, “the U.S. box office needs a supernatural performance through year-end just for sales to draw even with 2018.”

Separately, B Riley FBR lowered its adjusted earnings expectations for IMAX Corp.’s 2019 and 2020, also citing weaker-than-expected box-office trends.

“With lower-than-expected results out of ‘It: Chapter Two’ over this past weekend and modest expectations for ‘Ad Astra,’ we now project that IMAX is tracking to $225-230M in global box office for 3Q19 vs. our previous estimate of $249M and the current consensus estimate of $246M,” analyst Eric Wold wrote.

Despite that, he reiterated his buy rating and $34 price target on IMAX shares, writing that he was optimistic on its long-term trends, as well as the “improving profitability of the core cinema operations.”

IMAX shares were little changed, though the company is coming off a four-day rally.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Vlastelica in New York at rvlastelica1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Steven Fromm

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