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SSIMWAVE Inc., a video company that uses AI tech to enhance video images in real time and deliver the highest quality video images on any device for both on-demand and live video streams.Imax acquired SSIMWAVE as part of its mission to produce the best quality video images on any screen and to further its ambitions with live video. The deal was for $18.5 million in cash and $2.5 million in stock with additional earn-out consideration of $4 million, subject to achieving certain operating performance and financial objectives.SSIMWAVE’s tech has won two Emmys and has a 30-person engineering team that has mapped the human visual system to produce one of the most accurate measures of perceptual quality, which its AI-driven software applies to enhance video streams and files in real time.

Imax Corp. has acquired Ssimwave, an Ontario-based AI-driven tech firm whose clients include media giants from Disney and Paramount Global to Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCU parent Comcast. It’s a cash and stock deal worth $21 million.

The extension comes as Imax has made several other changes to its core leadership, including hiring former Warner Media human resources executive Michele Golden as its Global Chief People Officer. The company also promoted finance executive Natasha Fernandes as its new CFO and named Jennifer Horsley as SVP of investor relations.While movie theaters have struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic — with Regal Cinemas parent company Cineworld filing for bankruptcy — Imax has seen faster recovery thanks to strong performance from various blockbusters, most notably “Top Gun: Maverick,” which has taken more than $100 million from its $1.46 billion global box office run from Imax screenings alone.

Big screen exhibitor Imax has extended the employment agreement of chief executive Richard Gelfond through Dec. 31, 2025.

Imax just cut a deal for six new big-screen installations in China this year — “a very positive development,” according to CEO Rich Gelfond. The company is a big player in the Chinese market, which is still strained by Covid lockdowns and in limbo for Western theatrical releases.

Imax Corp. has tapped Jennifer Horsley as SVP of Investor Relations to oversee the large format exhibitor and growing tech platform’s global IR  strategy and lead outreach to the investment community. She joins from adtech firm Taboola, where she was part of the core executive team that took the company public last year.

From a reported revenue of $74 million — up 45% year-over-year from $51 million in Q2 2021 — Imax reported a diluted loss per share of 5 cents. That is up from a diluted loss per share of 23 cents last quarter and loss per share of 16 cents in Q2 2021, though below the profit of 17 cents per share reported in Q4 2021 off the success of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”Imax’s write-down is largely attributable to COVID-19 closures at 400 of their Chinese locations to start the quarter, including all locations in Shanghai.

China recently set release dates for two summer films – Universal’s Jurassic World Dominion June 10 and big local language production Mozart From Space (by the director of the Detective Chinatown series) July 15. That’s good news for the giant market’s reopening, said Imax CEO Rich Gelfond. But he doesn’t expect heightened scrutiny of Hollywood fare to subside anytime soon despite the Jurassic news. China has declined to date many high-profile U.S. films with recent Marvel omissions perhaps the most glaring.

Big-screen pioneer Imax said it recorded a net non-cash provision of $6.9 million, or $0.12 per share, due to an increase in reserves given the uncertainty of collecting receivables in Russia. With the Russia-Ukraine war ongoing, sanctions and boycotts underway include all major studios pulling releases from Russia.

Imax reported a global quarterly box office total of $173.2 million, up 57% over Q1 2021 thanks in large part to the March release of “The Batman” and post-holiday holdover screenings of “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Imax also had screenings of seven local language films in countries like China, India and France. Adjusted EBITDA stood at $14.8 million, up from $2.8 million in Q1 2021 during which theaters worldwide closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fernandes, a 15-year veteran of the premium format film company, will report directly to CEO Rich Gelfond. She succeeds Joseph Sparacio, who served as the company’s CFO from 2007 to 2016 and rejoined Imax last year in the same role on an interim basis.

Imax has promoted Natasha Fernandes to the role of Chief Financial Officer, effective May 1. A 15-year veteran of the company’s finance team, Fernandes most recently served as Deputy Chief Financial Officer. She succeeds Joseph Sparacio, who served as the company’s CFO from 2007-2016, and rejoined Imax last year as interim CFO.

The premium theater company reported revenue of $108.6 million, a surge of 94% year-over-year. Imax also reported adjusted earnings of 31 cents per share compared to a loss of 21 cents per share in the prior-year period.

Q3 earnings, IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond predicts that his premium format film company will be an even bigger player in the film industry coming out of the pandemic as studios drive even deeper into a blockbuster-first strategy with their film slates. “The evolution of the global film industry is taking shape in ways that uniquely benefit IMAX — and our market share,” Gelfond said on an earnings call on Thursday.

Obviously, when it comes to the spectrum of how people feel about day-and-date releases of feature films on streaming platforms and in theaters, folks like the CEO of IMAX are going to be on the side of exclusive theatrical windows. But one of the main ways he defends this stance, in a recent interview with Puck, is by pointing out the record levels of piracy that have been seen after Warner Bros.

Rich Gelfond said he’d love Paramount to rethink Top Gun: Maverick’s recent move from this fall to next May, but it’s not likely. “I have spent a lot of time close to a lot of the decision makers at Paramount and… in Top Gun they think they have something very special. Tom Cruise waited more than 35 years to make that movie,” he said. “I think they just feel that for that franchise, and with that kind of quality, they want to make sure the box office is 100%.”

According to Imax chief executive Rich Gelfond, the box office power of Disney/Marvel’s Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings should lay to rest the question of moviegoers’ willingness to return to theaters.

Despite Disney’s experimentation with releasing movies like Black Widow and Jungle Cruise day-and-date in theaters and in the home on the PVOD tier of their streaming service Disney+ Premier, Imax CEO Rich Gelfond doesn’t believe the model will be the new normal moving forward.

Big format giant Imax reported a surge in revenue last quarter and narrower losses compared with a shuttered 2020 as CEO Rich Gelfond said a deluge of Hollywood tentpoles arriving will drive people to theaters.

Imax CEO Rich Gelfond believes a growing consensus around the long-fraught topic of theatrical movie release windows will boost the recovery of exhibition in 2021 and beyond.

Imax CEO Rich Gelfond doesn’t see the Warner Bros.-induced sound and fury in Hollywood subsiding anytime soon as talent joins theaters to protest the studio’s 2021 theatrical windows – nor does he think Warner will stick it out for a full year.

potential coronavirus vaccine sent shares of movie theater chains soaring on Monday. For the first time in a long time, it seems, cinema owners and investors see hope for a sector that has been decimated by the public health crisis.“We have not heard good news for awhile, and this is unqualified good news,” says Rich Gelfond, CEO of Imax Entertainment.

Dade Hayes Finance EditorImax CEO Rich Gelfond rejects the popular notion that premium video on demand is the future for blockbuster movie releases.“PVOD is a failed experiment,” Gelfond said during an online appearance Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference. “The numbers haven’t worked in a pandemic, so how would they work in a non-pandemic?”Results from PVOD releases — viewership, revenue, etc.

Jill Goldsmith Co-Business EditorImax CEO Rich Gelfond anticipates streamers will become more active in exhibition as the post-COVID business shakes out and said his team is turning gray at the stress of constantly shifting release schedules — even as Deadline reports that Warner Bros.

IMAX theatres at the Chinese box office continues to exceed our expectations and reinforces our belief that audiences are eager to return to theatres where local guidelines allow,” said Rich Gelfond, CEO of IMAX in a statement.

Dade Hayes Finance EditorDue to strong ties between Imax Corp. and filmmaker Christopher Nolan, a number of employees have gotten a look at his long-delayed film, Tenet, as it gets ready to finally make its commercial bow on August 26.“Several people at Imax were involved with Tenet at the post-production phase,” CEO Rich Gelfond said Tuesday during a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

Jill Goldsmith Imax CEO Rich Gelfond said enticing patrons away from Friday and Saturday night s is critical for the successful reopening of the exhibition business.

Imax has named Pablo Calamera as chief technology officer and executive VP, the company announced Monday. He succeeds Brian Bonnick, who will retire after 20 years on the job.