Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q1 2023 IMAX Corporation Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during that session, you will need to press star one one one your phone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Jennifer Horsley, Head of Investor Relations. You may now begin. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on today's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. On the call today to review the financial results are Rich Gelfond, Chief Executive Officer, and Natasha Fernandes, our Chief Financial Officer. Robert Lister, Chief Legal Officer, is also joining us today. Today's conference call is being webcast in its entirety on our website. A replay of the webcast will be made available shortly after the call. In addition, the full text of our earnings press release and the slide presentation have been posted on the investor relations section of our site. At the conclusion of this call, our historical Excel model will be posted to the website as well. I would like to remind you of the following information regarding forward-looking statements. Today's call, as well as the accompanying slide deck, may include statements that are forward-looking and that pertain to future results or outcomes. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual future results to not occur or occurrences to differ. Please refer to our SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of some of the factors that could affect our future results and outcomes. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. During today's call, references may be made to certain Non-GAAP financial measures. Discussion of management's use of these measures and the definition of these measures, as well as the reconciliation to Non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted EPS, and adjusted EBITDA as defined by our credit facility, are contained in this afternoon's press release and our earnings materials, which are available on the investor relations page of our website at imax.com. With that, let me now turn the call over to Mr. Rich Gelfond. Rich. Thanks, Jennifer, and thank you everyone for joining us today. 2023 is off to a very strong start. Across our network sales and global box office, we are soaring to historic highs that position us very well in both the near-term and long-term. Simply put, it's a great time to be in the IMAX business. Sales activity is booming. Year-to-date, we've already completed 63 signings for new and upgraded IMAX systems around the world, significantly more than the 47 signings we did in all of 2022. We delivered our highest grossing Q1 ever at the global box office. We captured 3.5% global market share in the period, up over our full-year record set in 2022. We drove extremely strong double-digit year-over-year growth in quarterly revenue and adjusted EBITDA and improved adjusted EPS of $0.30 year-over-year and operating cash flow $25 million year-over-year. What's exciting is the geographic composition of these results because they offer proof that IMAX is even more global than ever. Many of our signings came at high-value international markets, validating our strategy to focus on countries where we're generating high per-screen averages. The first quarter was our highest grossing ever for local language films. Nearly a third of our global box office was driven by non-Hollywood films. That included our highest grossing Chinese New Year ever for local language films and top 3 all-time IMAX releases in Japan and India. Many of these films, including India's Pathaan and RRR and Japan's Suzume, drove box office in countries outside their home markets, further establishing IMAX as a leader in the global export of local language blockbusters. As a result, we remain firm that we will drive significant growth in system signings, installations, global box office, and adjusted EBITDA throughout this year. Today, I'd like to provide updates on our network growth and sales activity and our global box office and film slate. I'll turn it over to Natasha to take you through our financial results in detail before opening it up to questions. First, our sales activity has broken out in a significant way, which is a very positive indicator for long-term growth across our global network, box office, and financial results. As I mentioned, our sales strategy this year is focused on high box office markets around the world, particularly those where we drove record-breaking performance with Avatar: The Way of Water and have made significant gains with local language content. Our strategy resulted in 28 system signings in the first quarter, all but one of which were for new locations, and 63 signings year-to-date. It's important to note that all signings are not equal. Many of these agreements are high quality in terms of market PSAs and increasing our footprint in high potential growth markets. For the deals we signed during the first quarter, the aggregate per screen average was nearly $1 million during 2022. That includes Japan, a market where we drove $1.8 million PSA in 2022, and recently signed an agreement with AEON to install seven new systems this year. We signed our biggest deal ever in Indonesia for 10 systems, which will double our footprint in the world's fourth most populous nation. We struck an agreement for up to 10 IMAX with Laser systems in Thailand, which will also significantly expand our footprint in that market. Around the world, we remain in active discussions on new signings with exhibitors. That even extends to our most highly penetrated market, North America. At CinemaCon earlier this week, we announced our biggest agreement for new screens with a new partner in the United States in a decade with EVO Entertainment, an innovative exhibitor with ambitious plans for national expansion. Furthermore, we continue to generate new opportunities for IMAX Enhanced, while strengthening our go-to-market strategy for SSIMWAVE. Just last week, our partners at HP announced plans to bring the world's first IMAX Enhanced certified personal computer to market. At SSIMWAVE, we installed a new chief revenue officer, a veteran digital executive who has served in that role for subsidiaries of TiVo and Nielsen. And last week, IMAX made its first appearance at the NAB show in Las Vegas, where SSIMWAVE's VOD Monitor won a product of the year award, and we held more than 100 meetings to discuss potential new and expanded partnerships. It's notable that in a time of cost-cutting among streamers and high churn among SaaS-based solution providers, SSIMWAVE has retained its entire client base, underscoring its value as a cost-saving solution. We also remain bullish on the long-term applications of SSIMWAVE technology, including potentially transformative solutions for streamers that allow them to compress video images while preserving optimal quality and saving significant costs. For both SSIMWAVE and IMAX Enhanced, we view 2023 as an important stepping stone for these initiatives to make more meaningful contributions to our revenue next year and beyond. With our global IMAX system network almost fully online for the first time in three years, we reaped the benefit of having a full, diversified content pipeline to push through it. Avatar: The Way of Water anchored the quarter, concluding its two months in our network as the highest grossing IMAX first-run release of all time, with $255 million in box office. With the Avatar effect clear in our strong sales activity, we are very excited that there are still three installments of this box office juggernaut to come through 2028. We continue to capture an outsized share of the box office on our core blockbusters, including 10% of the domestic opening weekend for Ant-Man 3 and 11% for John Wick 4. Our success in Q1 goes well beyond Hollywood blockbusters. We delivered more than $80 million in local language box office, our highest grossing quarter for local language films ever. A highly successful Chinese New Year holiday accounted for the lion's share of that figure, headlined by Wandering Earth 2, our highest grossing local language film of all time. The quarter also saw the release of India's Pathaan, our third highest grossing Indian release of all time. Japan's Suzume climbed to second on our list of highest grossing Japanese titles of all time as it continued its global rollout. Our local language strategy has played out in three distinct phases. First, we strategically ramped up our local language pipeline in key markets during the COVID pandemic to diversify beyond Hollywood as U.S. studios postponed releases or conducted failed experiments with day and date streaming. This yielded several big pandemic-era hits from The Eight Hundred, the first Chinese film shot with IMAX cameras, to our highest grossing Japanese title ever with Demon Slayer. Second, we shifted perception of our brand in critical markets like India and Japan. Before the pandemic, we were viewed as a platform for Hollywood blockbusters. Now we're seen as a first-choice purveyor of local blockbusters as well. Today, we're entering the third phase. Our success with local language films is extending beyond their home markets, IMAX is becoming a critical player in launching these films around the world. Here are just a few examples. Suzume delivered greater IMAX box office in China than it has in its home market, Japan. RRR has delivered greater IMAX box office in Japan than it has in India. Pathaan has recorded greater IMAX box office outside India in a diverse collection of markets across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. IMAX delivered 30% of the opening weekend box office for Wandering Earth 2 when it debuted in the US. We've only begun to tap the potential here as local film industries around the world grow more advanced and streaming further acclimates global audiences to local language content and viewing with subtitles. This month offers a great example of our unique, diversified content portfolio with the record-breaking animated debut of Super Mario Brothers anchoring a slate that also includes French, Indian, and Japanese local language releases playing in IMAX markets throughout the world. In a month with only one Hollywood tentpole on the slate, our April box office through last weekend is more than double what it was in April a year ago. The floodgates open wide for Hollywood blockbusters next month and through July with a very strong IMAX-friendly slate that includes new installments of many of Hollywood's biggest franchises, including Guardians of the Galaxy, Fast and the Furious, The Little Mermaid, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse, Transformers, The Flash, which played extremely well at CinemaCon, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, and of course, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, shot with IMAX cameras. The back half of the year has strong titles as well, anchored by film IMAX releases Dune: Part Two and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. We remain committed to the 30 to 40 local language titles for the full year, as well as exclusive IMAX Live events like our successful world premiere of Creed III. Around the world for a diversifying set of creators and content owners, it's clear IMAX is a must-have partner for the launch of global blockbuster content. In conclusion, we are delivering on the strong promise 2023 holds for IMAX with diverse, high-quality new signings in key growth markets, a record-breaking quarter at the box office, continued global market share growth, and significant progress in the global diversification of our brand and business. We are confident in our ability to drive further global growth across the IMAX network and box office as we carry our strong momentum throughout this year. We look forward to updating you on our progress as the year continues and to creating value for our business, our shareholders, and audiences around the world that continue to embrace the IMAX experience. Thank you. With that, I'll turn it over to Natasha. Thanks, Rich, and good afternoon, everyone. As Rich highlighted, we are off to a strong start to 2023, and that positive momentum is clear in our results, including Q1 IMAX box office of $273 million, revenue growth of 45% over the prior year, adjusted EBITDA attributable margin of $27 million or 34% of attributable revenue, adjusted EPS of $0.16, and operating cash flow of $21.2 million. The positive business momentum has continued into Q2 with strong global box office and sales activity in the period to date. We are particularly encouraged by the quality and mix of our 63 signings so far this year. 54 were new systems compared to 30 for all of 2022. 23 with exhibition partners who are new to IMAX in the past year. 25% were in U.S. and Canada, 17% in Europe, 44% were in Japan and Southeast Asia. As mentioned earlier in the call, the vast majority were in high PSA countries. As announced at the time of our Q4 earnings, we resegmented our business to two reportable segments, which we believe are better aligned with how we operate and provide a clearer view of our entertainment technology business model. The first segment is Content Solutions, which consists primarily of revenues from our agreements with studios and filmmakers for the remastering and distribution of content to our network, including post-production services as well as documentary production and live events. The second segment is Technology Products and Services, which is focused on our IMAX system network and primarily includes revenues related to the sale, lease, and maintenance of IMAX systems to our exhibitor customers. Lastly, businesses which are not yet material enough to comprise their own segment are included in all other. At this time, the primary components of all other are IMAX Enhanced and SSIMWAVE. I encourage those looking for more detail on our segment reporting to view our updated historical financial model posted on our IR website. Now on to the results. First quarter results exceeded our expectations, driven by record IMAX global box office and the accompanying profit incrementality. Notable contributors were the long play of Avatar into February and the robust return of the China box office and our diversified portfolio of Hollywood and local language blockbusters that created a strong opportunity to maximize box office. As Rich noted, the benefit of our global content curation strategy was fully on display in Q1, with about a third of our box office coming from local language films. This includes 16% of local language box office generated outside the country of content creation. This local to global expansion of our strategy is proving highly successful. One recent example is Suzume. The Japanese animated blockbuster generated $6 million of box office in Japan, we didn't stop there. Given the film's success and the global demand for anime, we have now exported this film to target regions and cities, generating an incremental $10 million in U.S., China, and rest of world. The winning combination of Hollywood and local language content enables us to lower the volatility from Hollywood releases and to optimize the programming of our network to maximize box office for our exhibitor customers, which in turn is driving greater demand for IMAX systems, creating a positive growth dynamic. Our box office performance led to a record Q1 global market share of 3.5% on less than 1% of the screens, up from 2.6% in Q1 of 2022. Revenue in Q1 was $87 million, up 45% from $60 million in Q1 2022. At a 57.5% gross margin, we recognized gross profit of $50 million, which reflects growth of 58% year-over-year. This higher level of revenue and gross profit was driven by improvement in both segments. Content Solutions revenue of $32 million comprised 37% of total revenue and grew 53% year-over-year, driven by strong IMAX box office growth globally with North America up 25%, rest of world up 60%, and China up 97% year-over-year. Gross profit of $18 million grew 43% year-over-year, driven by the profitable flow through of box office while gross margin came in at 56.1% of revenue, down from 60% in 2022, driven by higher film marketing expenses and cost to operate the IMAX Connected Network, which scaled in the back half of 2022. Technology Products and Services revenue of $52 million comprised 59% of total revenue and grew 36% year-over-year. For this segment, gross profit of $30 million grew 63% year-over-year with a gross margin of 57.8%, which was up from 48.5% in 2022. This strong result was driven in part by an increase in systems re-rental revenues resulting from box office growth of 52% associated with our revenue-sharing model, which also generated higher revenue flow through to margin. Also contributing to our Technology Products and Services results were a higher level of installations under sales or hybrid arrangements and system renewals. In total, we had nine installations in the quarter, eight of which were sales or sales type leases, and one which was a joint revenue-sharing lease. Consistent with our expectations, total installations were in keeping with historical seasonality. System signings of 28 were at their highest Q1 level since 2018 and compared to seven in Q1 2022. 27 of these signings were from international markets which were driving strong PSAs and see a clear opportunity to grow our system footprint and in turn, box office. This momentum has continued into Q2 with 35 signings already achieved. This is a very positive signal and will seal long-term future growth considering the relatively low level of IMAX system penetration, particularly in rest of world. All other of $3.2 million comprised 4% of total revenue and grew 168% year-over-year, reflecting the addition of SSIMWAVE as the acquisition closed in September 2022, as well as the growth in IMAX Enhanced. Turning to operating expenses. SG&A, excluding stock-based compensation of $29 million increased $4.5 million from Q1 2022, driven by normalized level of business activity, including higher staff costs over the prior year as we have returned to a full staffing complement following the pandemic. In addition, the inclusion of SSIMWAVE expenses contributed $1.5 million of the increase. As a percentage of revenue, SG&A, excluding stock-based compensation, was 33% versus 41% in Q1 2022, an improvement of 740 basis points, reflecting cost discipline efforts and the strong operating leverage in our business. Adjusted EBITDA attributable to IMAX was $27.3 million or 34.4% of attributable revenue and grew 84% compared to $14.8 million in the prior year, driven by growth across our segments and specifically the high level of box office performance flow through to profit. Adjusted EPS in Q1 was $0.16, which would have been $0.19 except for the negative tax valuation impact of $1.6 million or $0.03 in Q1 2023. This compares to adjusted EPS loss of $0.14 in the year ago period, which includes a negative tax valuation impact of $5 million or $0.09. We anticipate for the foreseeable future an approximate $1 million-$2 million or $0.03-$0.04 quarterly negative tax valuation allowance impact. As we turn to our balance sheet and cash flows, operating cash flow was $21 million or almost 70% of adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter, representing significant growth of $25 million from the use of cash of $4 million in the prior year period. This improvement reflects our higher profits year-over-year and the accelerating business recovery of our exhibition customers post-COVID. For context, operating cash flow for the entire year of 2022 was only $17 million. A tremendous start to the year in what generally has been in recent years a weaker operating cash flow quarter. Our capital position remains strong as the end of the year with $99 million in cash and $266 million of debt, excluding deferred financing costs. $230 million of which is our convertible senior notes due in 2026 that bear an interest rate of 0.5% per annum with a cash call of $37 per share. As of March 31st, our available liquidity was $423 million, including cash and cash equivalents of $99 million and $324 million in available borrowing capacity under the company's revolving facilities. Furthermore, as of March 31st, $192 million remains available under our share repurchase authorization. To conclude, the first quarter was a strong start to the year. As I said last quarter, we believe and are now seeing that 2023 will be a year where the combination of our unique position in the entertainment industry and our high margin, asset-light, technology-focused business model will shine through. The long-term opportunities for growth are even more significant. The ceiling is very high when you factor in our global system under penetration, along with the emerging potential of our streaming technology backed by our strong brand. We look forward to reporting on our progress on all these fronts going forward. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator for Q&A. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your phone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Stand by as we compile the Q&A roster. One moment please for our first question. Our first question will come from Eric Wold of B. Riley Securities. Your line is open. Thanks. Good afternoon. I guess a couple questions, two questions from me. I guess, Rich, you know, with the 63 signings you've announced year to date, and I guess probably what's in discussion and hasn't been announced, I know you talked about the strength of Avatar and whatnot kind of driving these accelerated discussions. I mean, there have been periods of other box office strengths in the past 10 plus years since the prior Avatar. What makes this different, possibly, from those other periods? How does this impact your thoughts around you kind of ultimately backfilling or penetrating certain markets as you see where this demand is emanating from? Eric, I think that, you know, Avatar was a factor and the Avatar effect, which we've talked about, but I think in the quarter, there was much more going on than Avatar. First of all, let's talk about Avatar, which as you know, we did 11% of the box office on less than 1% of the screens and did $255 million. 13 years ago with Avatar and the Avatar effect, there was 1 Avatar. Now we have Avatars coming every two years, and there are three more of them. In one way, I think of it as an off-balance sheet asset. If you're, if you're someone thinking of getting into the IMAX business, you know for the next, you know, number of years that you have an Avatar coming. I think maybe the Avatar effect even gets magnified to a certain extent. I think besides Avatar, what happened was a lot more kind of systemic event. As you know, our local language content, both if it's in its place of origin and in other markets, was almost a third of our box office in the quarter. That's, you know, that's kind of a totally different look than we've had in the past. To give an example, this past weekend, I think we did about $4.5 million on Super Mario, and people say, "Oh, they played Super Mario." Overall, our box office for the weekend was over $13 million. I think it gets way more likely that you can't just look at the latest Hollywood release that's coming out. Again, let's fast-forward to this weekend. It's Labor Day in China, which is a 5-day holiday, and we've got 3, we think, going to be very successful films playing there. In India, one of the most anticipated films of the year is opening this weekend. In the old days with IMAX, if you look at it, you'd say, "Well, there's not a lot coming in North America. You know, it's hard to predict. I don't know." When you look at it this year, I, you know, I think it'll be and Mario's opening in Japan. You look at it and piece all that together, and you'd say, "You know, wow, there's a lot of box office coming out of there." I think it lessens the volatility and the dependence on Hollywood blockbusters. I think people in their markets, they're not just looking at Avatar. If you are in China, you're looking at, anime. You know, if you're in Canada, you're looking at Indian releases. I think when you put that all together, it all adds up to a much more predictable, stable box office, which of course, Avatar is part of, but I think it's a lot more than that. No, that's perfect, Rich. I guess last question. Obviously you're, you know, you have the "problem" of having, you know, too full of a slate. I mean, you've got, you know, movies fighting each other for room on IMAX, but you're still somewhat tied to film releases and film successes. I think about SSIMWAVE. What needs to happen for that technology to become a true kind of recurring revenue stream that's decoupled from any kind of content release calendar on the streaming platforms or otherwise? You know, what needs to happen for there for that to become the case? I think we need to wait a little while to roll out the products in a more, a broader way. The product itself, if you don't recall, basically does streaming optimization, which is, it figures out the optimal compression rates on different kinds of content in order to save streamers money. As a matter of fact, that product just won an award as best new product in its category at NAB this last weekend. You know, at NAB, we had way more discussions and way more leads than SSIMWAVE has ever had before. I think we just closed on it five months ago. Obviously, the narrative of how streamers can save money is a really important narrative in that world. The total addressable market is quite large, and now it's time for us to roll it out. You know, we have clients for different SSIMWAVE products, including Disney+ and Comcast and Paramount+, you know, lots of other clients, but we haven't really pushed this product. It's this product at this time, which we believe over time could be a game changer. Do I think it's gonna contribute significant revenues in the third quarter? No, I don't. I do think as we launch this product and people understand that it's gonna gain traction, and I'm quite excited about its potential to diversify our revenue and profit streams. Helpful. Thanks, Rich. Thank you. One moment, please, for our next question. Our next question will come from Eric Handler of Roth MKM. Your line is open. Thank you very much for the question. Good afternoon. Rich, I wonder, you know, we talked a little bit about the local language films. You obviously had a very high percentage in the first quarter. As you look at your full year box office guidance for this year of $1.1 billion, what do you think local language could potentially account for that total? Where do you think that amount could go over the next three four years? Eric, as you know, it's dangerous to predict how particular movies are gonna do, and I'd rather look at it from a portfolio basis. You know, because part of it is what do you think Hollywood movies are gonna do, and what percentage that's gonna be. Certainly when we, you know, put together our guidance, which we gave on the last call, you know, we understood that the impact of foreign films could be significant, and that's part of what, you know, got us to where we came out. You know, we'll have more local language films than, you know, we had last year in the second quarter. I believe I just went through, this coming weekend. Again, I think it's gonna be choppy, and I think some of it's gonna depend on China, 'cause China's our first and biggest market for local language films. Again, you know, we mentioned this on the call, but I think it's worth underlining that last weekend in China, for an anime Japanese movie called Slam Dunk, we did $5.5 million. This is really a growing area for us, and it involves how fast it grows and how far it grows, and it also involves, you know, what Hollywood films do. I think trying to assess the percentage is very, very difficult other than to say I think the absolute number will be bigger than it was last year. Fair enough. Let me ask this question then. You know, let's say you continue to see very good success with local language films over the next several years. Let's say you've doubled the volume of your local language film count. Would that have any consequential impact on your DMR costs? you know, I don't think so, Eric. you know, you've given me the opportunity to mention that for local language films, we're actually doing our DMR costs in many of the territories they're being released in. For example, in India, we just started DMR-ing, Indian films in India and Chinese films we do in China. The costs of DMR-ing are cheaper in those territories than they are doing them in the United States. The more product we do there as a percentage of the total product, the average cost should come down. That's very helpful. Thanks a lot. Thank you. One moment, please, for our next question. Our next question will come from David Karnovsky of J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Hi. Thanks. Rich, appreciate the success you're seeing in China with local content, but if we look at kinda Hollywood films and we start to see more good dates, I think the recent performance is, you know, mixed, especially for some of the comic book features. I'm wondering if you think there's been a shift at all in local taste over the prior three years, or is this just too much read-through from a relatively small sample? David, Yeah, I think it's a relatively small sample. I mean, we're only four months away from Avatar, which during the height of the pandemic, when, you know, a significant part of the country was locked down, we did over $50 million. You know, you go through the slate, even Ant-Man, which, as you know, didn't perform well in China, it wasn't that far off of what the previous Ant-Mans had done. You know, one problem I have is that a very short sample size begins being characterized as a trend. I think it's way too early. If you look at some of the films that have already gotten in, like Fast and Furious and Transformers, and I believe Mission Impossible will get in, you know, those are usually very big performers in China. You know, I, I think we just have to wait and give it some time. I personally am very optimistic that movies that played well before that, those genres of movies will continue to do well. One other thing I should add is, with two parts to it, is the films that have gotten in in China have gotten in a lot earlier than they used to. There's much more time for a proper marketing campaign and public awareness to build, and that, you know, that's something extremely positive. You know, I also think that there'll be momentum. There hasn't been Hollywood film last year very much because of the pandemic and other issues. I think once films start to come in, like in the rest of the world, you trailer other ones and momentum sort of builds. I think, you know, the momentum will improve the performance of following films. I don't see that as an issue right now. Okay. Just with the potential for a writer strike, wondering how or if at all, you think this could impact IMAX? I would think studios would hold pretty tight to their IMAX dates, but any risk if we got into a very extended strike that could lead to some movies, you know, maybe later in the year getting pulled off the slate to help, you know, plug a future gap in the schedule? I think almost every movie, I hesitate to say every movie, but close to that, is already pretty much locked. I think there's very little risk for the rest of this year. Again, because we've become much broader than Hollywood, you know, we have much more ability than almost anyone else to slot in other movies at that time. Also remember that only one-third of our revenues are from North America, so it doesn't impact as much a lot of other territories. I'm pretty confident in saying this year, I don't really think it would have much of an impact. Now, if it's a really prolonged strike and it goes well into 2024, you know, of course, it could have an impact, but, you know, that's not what we're hearing is gonna happen. Thank you. Thank you. One moment, please, for our next question. Our next question will come from Omar Mejias of Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Good afternoon, guys, and thank you for taking my question. Maybe going back to signings, it seems like you guys are reaching an inflection point here with signings, and this is all happening without China. Can you give us some context on what's changed? How are your conversations different with exhibitors? Then also maybe talk about how should we think about the timing of some of these signings? Are they mostly 2023 events or 2024 events? Just trying to sort of triangulate here, as it relates to I think you guys are the signings are accelerating and you don't even have China in the mix. Would it be fair to think that you have a clear path to get back to, like, pre-pandemic level signings, as we move beyond 2023? Thanks. I think there are several factors, Omar. I think one of them is kind of the percentage of the box office that's being done by blockbusters. As you know, the percentage of movies that were IMAX kind of movies has been rising steadily. The pandemic kind of accelerated that because a lot of the smaller and mid-level movies went to streaming. I think, you know, it just gives us a fuller slate, a more comprehensive slate. I don't wanna, you know, repeat myself, but the globalization of the film slate has also made our the outlook, if you're someone considering getting into the IMAX business, you have more confidence and less dependence on Hollywood. I think market share is a big part of it. You know, our market share is up about 50% in North America since pre-pandemic. Overall in the world, it's up about mid-30s%. I think people are just more comfortable with the economics. You know, I'll give you one, like, a micro example of that. In Japan, our PSA is around $1.8 million, and in India, they're pretty close to what they are in the U.S. If you are thinking of getting into the IMAX business and to put a model together, it looks really attractive to do that. I think all of that stems a little bit from the fact that the pandemic has changed consumer behavior. After sitting on the couch for a number of years, not just in IMAX, but in concerts, in sports, in special events, people when they go out, are getting used to paying a premium price for a premium experience, and that's become more and more important to them. I think when you put all that together and you model it just makes the case to go into the IMAX business more compelling. I think it's all of that. As to the second part of your question about, you know, pre-pandemic levels, you know, it depends on the year, and again, you have to divide the signings. You have to divide them into new builds, which new theaters, which put us in more territories. Remember, we don't just get paid from the theaters, we get paid from the studios on that. That has kind of a double effect, and you have to look at upgrades. I think if you looked at kind of new locations, I do think that they'll could start to approach pre-pandemic levels. you know, and even this year, we're only four months into it with 63 signings, so, you know, even this year could approach those levels. I think going forward. Remember, Omar, that all this is happening where in some areas of the world, the exhibitors are still under some financial restraints. In North America, you know, we announced the biggest deal we've announced in a decade, and you still have exhibitors that are challenged. In Asia, I think it's a lot better, and I think that's one reason a lot of the signings have come from there because they came out sooner, and they're better capitalized. I think China, they'll probably be, you know, a 6-9 month lag time and, you know, their box office is coming back. When you put it all together, I think once people get through this period of time, you know, there's no reason we can't go back to historical levels. That's very helpful. Maybe going back to Cineway, I know you talked about, it's been around five months since you closed the deal. You've instituted a new head of sales there. Can you maybe give us a timeline of what are some of the key time, just the top priorities that you have over the next 6 to 12 months there? What's the long-term opportunity, but not only from an external standpoint, but also how their technology could help IMAX internally as well? Thanks. The timeline is, you know, we've developed a number of leads, like I said, at NAB. You know, we don't want, in the first instance, necessarily to aim for the biggest clients in the world. I think we wanna go for small and mid-size streaming companies, to demonstrate the use case and document, some data that we can use. I think, like, literally today, you know, we're following up on those leads, and we're, you know, trying to get in as many demos in as broad a territory as we can. Then as the use case, keeps rolling out, and as you mentioned, thank you, I forgot that in my previous answer, that we hired, you know, a new head of revenue and sales who has actually, you know, been at a company recently, which he took from, like, $30 million in sales to $80 million in a couple of years. I think you just have to put those pieces in place, which we're in the process of doing, and then I think you demonstrate your use case, and then you try and blow it out in a broader way. You know, we're gonna be as aggressive as we prudently can be, but as I said before, I don't think you'll see, you know, meaningful numbers to IMAX Corporation come in until sometime, you know, mid 2024-2025. Thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you. One moment please for our next question. Our next question will come from Stephen Laszczyk of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Hey, great. Good afternoon. Rich, you mentioned IMAX's share of the global box office. I was wondering if you'd talk a little bit more about your expectations for share of total box as you look at the slate for the rest of 2023. Do you think that the strong trends in 2022 and in 1Q will continue to hold, or do you think there's some reversion to the mean that takes place this year? Yeah. I think they hold, period. Hopefully, they go up. I'd be really surprised to see a reversion to the mean because the world has changed in a lot of ways. Mid-level movies are going to streaming. You know, foreign language films are going to different countries. The level of blockbusters is increasing and, you know, just went through it kind of briefly on the call. The slate for April was not one when you looked at it on the outside, you know, maybe Mario you thought would be okay, but it was not like a summer blockbuster season. We more than doubled what our forecasts were for April and what last April looked at. You know, as of still April, it's looking like really good. I don't think in a period where you go into Guardians of the Galaxy and Fast and the Furious and Indiana Jones and Mission: Impossible, films that are kinda franchises that have always done great in IMAX, that I'd be shocked if our market share, you know, went down at that period of time. You know, also, remember is that our network footprint is gonna grow. I mean, obviously we've given install guidance for this year, so we'll have a larger footprint than we had. At the same time, our footprint is increasing, you know, at least in North America, some of the conventional footprint is decreasing. Even though they're not direct competitors, I think that'll also give us incremental market share. You know, I'd like to be able to predict, but I don't want to get ahead of myself, that it'll continue to go up, but I certainly don't see it going down. Great. Thank you. That's helpful. Then maybe just one on the opportunity in ticket pricing. We've seen some of the major theater operators start to talk more seriously about dynamic ticket pricing, over the last few quarters. I was curious, you know, what your views were on dynamic pricing for the box office more broadly, and then perhaps more specifically, the opportunity for IMAX on pricing over the long- term. I'm actually gonna start a little more general and then answer your question, which is one thing I didn't mention, I was talking recently to one of our important European exhibitors, and I said, "Are you over-screen?" He said, "No, it's not a too much screen problem. It's a revenue problem, revenue per seat." He said to me, and by the way, one of the deals we signed, he said, "Whereas in the past, I probably would have invested in more screens," he said, "The ROI on putting in premium things like IMAX is much better than investing in screens." I do think the ability to get that ticket price premium is one way they see, you know, going forward. He said to me, "You know, when I do my own internal model and I convert my network over to much more premium, you know, I could keep my screen count the same and box office doesn't have to grow by much, and I have a very different economic model." I think ticket pricing is another example of that. If you look historically during inflationary periods, it's been relatively easy to raise tickets. As I said earlier in another context, you know, look at the price of concert tickets, sports tickets. You know, it's not like we're pushing against a tide, we're kinda with the tide. Also, the ticket prices, even for IMAX, are way lower than for comparable special experiences in other part, theater, you know, concerts, all those things. I think there's a lot of way to move. Whether the answer is dynamic pricing or not, I'm just not sure. It's also a complicated question because the studios have a pony in that race, too, and the studios have traditionally resisted dynamic pricing. I don't know if they're gonna feel differently about it this time. Also, you know, dynamic pricing like models where the price goes down over time and it's higher for better seats. You know, in IMAX, our percentage of great seats is much higher, and most of our films we play for one to two weeks, so we don't have to fill a box, you know, in week four or week five like they do. I think the arguments for dynamic pricing are much less convincing in IMAX. Great. Thanks, Rich. Thank you. One moment please for our next question. Our next question will come from Steven Frankel of Rosenblatt. Your line is open. Good afternoon. Thank you. Rich, we talked a lot about local language. One element that we haven't dug into yet is the injection of IMAX DNA into films in markets other than China. I know it took you several years to get there in China, and now that's a regular feature. What's the path to having other local language content that's either shot in IMAX or has material IMAX DNA to it? Yeah. It's something that we're starting to focus on, Steve, more and more. I think, you know, I'm not up to speed on a project-by-project basis, but I know in Japan and in India, we've had specific conversations about using our cameras. There's one filmmaker I know of in India who I've talked to myself who's starting a project probably in about six months, who intends to film it with IMAX cameras. I do think that's gonna be more and more a part of our strategy, particularly the digital cameras, because it's not that much more expensive to shoot with them. I would also think in Japan in particular, because of the popularity of IMAX, it just makes sense for them to do it. I think that's a trend you're likely to see. Okay. maybe some of your latest thoughts on IMAX Live. Obviously now your cup runneth over with content, but maybe some of your thoughts on how you think best to use that capacity. As you know, we've wired 250 theaters. That was our target for the end of last year. I think we need to further refine our content strategy and we're in the process of doing that now. I think the things that work very well are these marketing-related events. We're doing a Guardians of the Galaxy event, I think, next week with a number of members of the cast. Just last week, we actually did something original, which was with Paramount+. We took the cast of Picard, the show that streamed on Paramount+, and we did an IMAX Live event around that. I think we did an event with Scorsese this week, around Beau Is Afraid, or maybe it was last week. Those events, I think, are good marketing tools, that they, you know, the talent is able to promote its own content. We did Creed III, we did live from the red carpet in a significant number of theaters, and that worked very well. I think we're gonna focus a lot on that in the near- term. I think we'll continue to experiment with things like, sports, concerts, you know, other kinds of things. I think we'll focus more on the distribution model, which is the one that's used by IMAX in the film business than the original production model, 'cause, again, that's not where the history of what's made IMAX what it is. You know, if it continues to deliver, good marketing events, so we can add up the numbers and find really good, distribution events, then we'll go to the next level, which is 500 more. 500 rather than 250. We're in the process of using it for what we know works and testing it for what we hope works. That's sort of the short way to think about it. Great. Thank you. Thank you. One moment please for our next question. Our next question will come from Chad Beynon of Macquarie. Your line is open. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the quarter and the signings levels. Wanted to start with capital allocation. Natasha, you and the team have reduced the share count nicely in the last few years, as noted, particularly in '22 by, I believe, five million shares. Stock market's always fluid, but it certainly looks like free cash flow for you guys is moving in the right direction. How are you thinking about opportunistic or programmatic buybacks as we look forward? Thanks. Thanks, Chad. Yeah, we are continuing to think opportunistically about it. When the stock price is in the right level, we'll buy back. We were actually in a blackout for most of Q1, which is why you saw some buybacks, but not as significant as we have historically as we pretty much only had a two weeks open window during that period. We did put in 10b5-1s, but that sort of, you know, gets locked in, and then it does what it does during based on the price during that time. You know, you saw our cash flows for the quarter. It was a great start to the year. Operating cash flow in Q1 of $21 million exceeded all of 2022 of $17 million. You know, it's the second good cash flow quarter in a row. In general, if box office is tracking to $1 billion or higher, good things happen with margin and in turn cash. It's the incremental nature of our business. As you've seen in the past, when we have excess cash, we go through a cycle of doing repurchases. That's great. Interesting. Thank you. Rich wanted to ask about just, I guess, the change in direction with the streaming debate. I know this hasn't really affected you guys as much in the past couple years, just given your focus on blockbusterization, but I know this was, you know, certainly a positive takeaway for the overall industry from CinemaCon. Wondering if you could just kind of opine on, you know, updated views on this, if moviegoing begets moviegoing and maybe you get some more people out to the theater, if this is a positive or kind of a non-event for you guys. Thank you. Well, I mean, I think the data is clear that a theatrical release really helps a streaming release. You know, I've read some of the data that is being shared with the streamers, and it's just not a question. A theatrical release, you know, helps boost the entire value chain. I mean, there's a reason why people have done it forever, like reselling a product, building a buzz. All, you know, all of those reasons are really positive. You know, the other part of it, and I think this is what you were referring to, was Apple and Amazon deciding to release their streaming movies theatrically. I think for some movies it'll be really good, the blockbuster ones, and the more the merrier. I don't think it's a game changer for us because our slate was really, you know, there was a lot on it. For some of the big movies, I think it's a really good addition and, even some of the ones this year we're looking into whether we could get involved with them. It's nothing but a net positive. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. We have time for one more question. Our next question will come from James Goss of Barrington Research. Your line is open. All right. Thank you very much. Rich, I wanted to ask you about two of the international markets, Indonesia and India. Indonesia because it's brand new but very large, I think it's the number four population. I wonder if you could characterize the market. Is it mostly Hollywood content, or is it mostly local language or some sort of blend? With regard to India, I was wondering if there are certain characteristics within the type of movies that are made there local language-wise that play particularly well in IMAX. I'm wondering if the local production is starting to gravitate toward meeting those elements. For Indonesia, it's mostly a Hollywood market, and that's, you know, the partner we signed with, we've been in business for a while, and they've succeeded by mostly doing Hollywood films. However, we actually, as part of our overall theme on this call, we actually did a local language Indonesian film there that sort of did okay, and we're talking to them about doing more films there. I think they're primarily, for the time being, dependent on Hollywood and just. I know you know this, Jim, but to remind everyone, it's the fourth most populous nation on the planet. I think, you know, there's possibility there to do a lot more, obviously, depending on demographic issues and other things like that. In India, I was over there for a week, meeting with a bunch of exhibitors and studios. I think two real positives for us is, one, the amount of local language content that we're doing in India has gone up, and that's an important part of their box office. I mentioned earlier, we have almost the same PSA in India that we have in North America, which is close to $1 million. You know, certainly, the economics in India work pretty well. I think, you know, India has other kind of structural issues, like the potential partners there are much more highly fragmented than they are in other parts of the world, so there's a lot of independence there. Like, if you look to China, we could do a 50-theater deal. We could just really blow it open. There weren't a lot of opportunities to do that in India. It's much more blocking and tackling and, you know, it'll take some time. The third thing I would say about India is that construction and rollout takes much more time there. There's more bureaucracy, there's more approvals, there's more government intervention. I'm actually pretty optimistic on the Indian market, but I don't think it's gonna turn overnight. I think it's gonna take a little time. One of the things we're doing in India is with the right clients, we're actually gonna be doing a revenue share deals, which we never did in India before. Of course, we'll diversify our risk and be very selective in who it's with. We're doing that to try and move it along quicker and try and fight some of the structural headwinds. Okay. Thank you. One other question, last one. Going back to one of the comments you made about the premium preference, I wonder if there is any growing appetite for multiple IMAX screens per theater, either in the U.S. or internationally, along those lines where you can either stagger times or have multiple content at the same weekend or that sort of thing. We've thought a lot about that over the years, Jim, and I think, you know, the pluses for the really big movies, you could really pack it. Someone used the analogy for me, you know, like, IMAX is like the church that's built for Easter Sunday, and not every weekend is Easter Sunday. My concern is how you program it, you know, during slower periods of time. I certainly wouldn't wanna do something that couldn't be an economic success. What I think is a much better idea would be, you know, filling in the zones. For example, if an exhibitor has a zone, that their two theaters are, I don't know, 10 miles apart, and they own that zone, what I like to see them do is put a third theater at the midway point. I think that's a much better model than multiple theaters in one location. That's one that I've specifically discussed with exhibitors, and I think there's some interest in that. Okay. Thanks very much. Thank you. This will conclude the Q&A portion of the conference. I would now like to turn the conference back to CEO, Rich Gelfond, for closing remarks. Thank you very much. This is, you know, usually I close by summing up the call, but I'm gonna go in a slightly different direction, which is, I think, over the last decade plus, it's kind of been theatrical versus streaming. I think, you know, there was who's gonna win and how much each one's gonna cost the other one and fighting and head on. I've recently been coming more and more to the conclusion that streaming and theatrical can help each other. I think one of the examples was one of the last questions where, you know, more content will help more content from streaming will help theatrical, and I think the performance of theatrical will help streaming. For me, an even more interesting example is kind of the worldwide phenomenon around anime, which has done really well in IMAX. Anime is actually created through streaming platforms where they have lots of data about the individuals who are online, and then they take that online community, and they turn it into a theatrical community. You know, it could be television, it could be movies. Another example I would give, like with local language content, where, you know, exhibitors have lists of people who go to Indian local language films, and they promote them when there's a cricket match on. As I look to the future, I think a lot less about how streaming is a threat, and I think a lot more about how both sides are gonna be able to figure out how to make the pie much bigger. That's the way I'm starting to think about it, and I just share it 'cause I hope some of you think about it that way. I really appreciate you being on the call. As I said at the beginning, you know, it's a great time to be at IMAX and look forward to the next quarterly call. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect and have a pleasant day.