Exhibitors finally caught a break.
After four consecutive weekends of seeing ticket sales lag last year's already horrific showing, patrons came back to the movies in a major way.
Sony's (SNE 2.89%) Hotel Transylvania -- the family-friendly animated feature about a resort hotel for monsters -- took in $43 million in ticket sales over the weekend. How good it that? Well, this is actually the biggest theatrical opening for any movie during the month of September.
The industry will still need to improve if it wants to top last year's overall measly performance. One movie isn't enough to offset the problematic trend that finds moviegoers tiring of going out to the local multiplex.
Investors may not see it that way. Analysts see exhibitors Regal Cinemas (NYSE: RGC) and Cinemark (CNK +0.14%) actually growing revenue and earnings this year, but that may naturally change if the final three months of the year fail to pan out. The prognosis is even rosier for IMAX (IMAX 1.31%).
Wall Street sees the company growing its revenue and earnings by 21% and 88%, respectively, this year. However, IMAX's superior growth story has relied largely on international expansion and domestic multiplex operators converting more of their traditional screens to IMAX's premium platform.
As things stand, one weekend isn't going to make exhibitors forget a year that started strong but came largely undone during the latter half of the summer season.
Sony may have scored a hit -- and a surprising smash at that, seeing as more than half of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes panned the flick -- but that won't matter much for exhibitors if they can't get customers to come back for more.
Feature attraction
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