With respect to blockbusters, I think it is less for us about what the specific cost of the movie is and more about what the profitability of a movie can be.

In terms of genres, the truth is if you look over the last five, six months, a bunch of films that fit into a variety of categories in the low- and mid-budget space have performed exceptionally well -- in fact, probably better than we've seen in the last four or five years from our own Saw films to Five Nights at Freddy's.

We've reimagined Now You See Me with Ruben Fleischer, who is an absolute master at shepherding franchises.

When you look at our forward-looking production pipeline, we are as loaded as possible.

Warner Brothers has been especially active among studios testing things. For six months, starting in December 2006, Warner Bros. released DVDs and VOD on the same day to viewers in Denver and Pittsburgh.Source

In February 2006, IFC and Comcast (CMCSA) struck a deal to air two IFC produced independent films a month on Comcast’s On Demand service the same day the films were released in theaters.Source

Hanks plays Finch, a dying robotics expert who builds a robot to take care of his dog Goodyear for when ultimately passes.Source

Last weekend Apple unveiled its latest prized acquisition - Finch.Source

Dune: Part Two is now a top 10 release of all time, with more than $143 million in global box office to date. We've generated a stunning 21% of the film's total gross.Source

Oppenheimer, a film Christopher Nolan conceived and filmed very specifically for IMAX, won 8 Academy Awards and crossed $190 million in IMAX box office, entering our top 5 releases of all time.Source

I have not seen it, but I've talked to some people who have seen Godzilla vs Kong and I feel very good about that. And again, you don't have to be a genius to think Kong, Godzilla, IMAX, global.Source

Dune Part 2 was better than I thought and I had high expectations for it. I liked it better than Dune 1. I think it's a great story. Visually it's spectacular.Source

If anything, there may be fewer, I'd say, specialty films in that category that have been released post pandemic.Source

As far as the diversity of content goes, I do think that our studio partners recognize that.Source

In light of this context as well as what has been further communicated by the studios with regard to their future film development plans, we continue to remain bullish about the resurgence of film volume over the coming years.Source

A diverse range of highly anticipated films slated for the rest of this year appear primed to fully deliver, including a resurgence of family films like IF, the Garfield movie, Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, Moana 2 and Muthoot Lion King, action adventure sagas such as Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Furiosa, Bad Boys Rid or Die, Twisters Venon, The Last Dance and Glade, Kemetthrill rides like the Falgu, Deadpool and Wolverine, Borderlands, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, RedOne and Sonic the Hedgehog 3.Source

But again, you can assume the slate continues in that vein, but scales a bit. We're probably in the 8-ish release volume in the last year or two, that number probably ticks up marginally over time.

Look, we continue to believe in them. We have seen our franchises contribute significant value really across the business because, again, we use Paramount Pictures as part of an integrated strategy.

Netflix was the top preferred choice of media consumption.Source

Netflix reported 370,000 net new subs in the U.S. - pretty good - but 3.2 million internationally, crushing expectations.Source

However, these smaller projects could bring in $4 million to $40 million in revenue, and there are companies that have turned their financial power and might of their customer base to financing these films, which if successful, can bring in a very high return on investment.Source

The studio model is no longer designed for smaller projects that cost under $20 million, and finding financing for these small projects is becoming more difficult.Source

When we have -- and since you can't have -- it's impossible to have nothing but blockbusters giant films. You need those smaller films to help with that rehabitualization and that healthy ecosystem.

I believe that -- and I know that for us to have a healthy film ecosystem, we are going to need midsized films and smaller films to be a part of that mix more than in the last few years for sure.

James Goss: Okay. Also, I wanted to ask about the impact of the footprint optimization you've executed over recent years, along with the rest of the industry.

Gregory S. Marcus: Yes. Absolutely. We believe -- and we believe, generally, we've had some -- one of the things contributing this quarter was just a film mix stuff. When you get to the smaller films, they don't play as well in the Midwest. And Dune is not a smaller film. But again, that one had more -- when you get more urban focus, that's not where we shine.

Amazon also won the rights to "Manchester by the Sea", "Love & Friendship ($2 million), "Complete Unknown ($2 million+)", "Wiener-Dog (seven figures)", and "Author: The JT Leroy Story ($1 million)" at the Sundance Film Festival.Source

"Café Society" is a big bet being made by Amazon Studios. The studio arm of the e-commerce giant paid $20 million to the rights for the movie starring Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg.Source

The conversation also amped up this week when it was revealed Café Society has been selected to open the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.Source

Since neither Amazon nor Netflix release ratings or viewership information the best way to quantify their success is by how successful they are in the awards race.Source

We think we have 550 -- and round number is 550 of these things today. We think we could add 150 more.Source

When we look at our PLFs and that's IMAX, Dolby Cinema prime here in the United States, iSense in Europe, they are our most successful screens.Source

The quantity of films now coming out theatrically is rising. If you look at wide releases, defined as films grossing $5 million or more domestically, there were 35 such movies in Q1 2023 versus only 26 in Q1 of 2022, that's a 34.6% increase in the supply of theatrically released films.Source

First, is the clearly growing industry-wide box office up in North America by some 29% quarter-to-quarter versus last year, growing to more than $1.7 billion in the quarter.Source

And when we reach that level generically, you'll find out at that point that we don't know what will happen. Why did we call it singularity, because it comes originally from the concept of a black hole.Source

RT: Yes, I guess so. I guess so. If you look at what Ray Kurzweil has said, the singularity is basically the interconnection between three key areas of technology, which are nanotechnology, genetics and artificial intelligence.Source

Eisenhower warned us about this in his farewell speech when he said beware and be careful of the military industrial complex. And while we certainly want a military and to feel safe, at what point does the military make us less safe? You know, that's something explored in fiction all the time, right?Source

And that's why we called it a singularity, because we don't know what will happen in there. And whatever we're saying, the only thing I can tell you is that it might be correct, it might not be correct. And whoever says that they know what will happen, they don't know.Source