CNK & IMAX Q2 Preview: When You Wish Upon a (YouTube) Star — Reduce ’26 BO Despite Q2 Beat + Thoughts on YouTube IP and Film Supply

Research evidence excerpt

CNK & IMAX Q2 Preview: When You Wish Upon a (YouTube) Star — Reduce ’26 BO Despite Q2 Beat + Thoughts on YouTube IP and Film Supply

J P M O R G A N North America Equity Research

09 July 2026

Cinema

CNK & IMAX Q2 Preview: “When You Wish Upon a

(YouTube) Star” — Reduce ‘26 BO Despite Q2 Beat +

Thoughts on YouTube IP and Film Supply

Ahead of earnings for CNK and IMAX, we’re updating our industry and company Media, Entertainment and

forecasts and addressing investor questions we’ve been fielding recently. Overall, Advertising

we reduce our 2026 box office outlook and CNK estimates; the changes largely David Karnovsky, CFA AC

reflect stronger Q2 results, offset by a slow start to Q3 box office. Separately, we (1-212) 622-1206

lower IMAX estimates after Q2 China BO came in ~$35m below our estimates. david.karnovsky@jpmorgan.com

Kiscada A Hastings

(1-212) 622-0226

kiscada.hastings@jpmchase.com

Box Office Update Alexey Philippov, CFA

(1-212) 622-0810

alexey.philippov@jpmorgan.com

“When You Wish Upon a (YouTube) Star” — Q2 BO outperforms on

Douglas Wardlaw

Obsession/Backrooms, offset by a slow Q3 start with Minions opener and

(1-212) 622 4885

Moana tracking; Reduce 2026 BO to $9.65b. We reduce our 2026 North America douglas.wardlaw@jpmchase.com

Box Office estimate to $9.65b (+12% y/y; vs. $9.86b prior and $9.74b when we last J.P. Morgan Securities LLC

adjusted our CNK forecasts). The update primarily reflects the significant

underperformance of Minions and Mandalorian as well as lower tracking for

Moana, partly offset by the strong Q2 beat (driven by Obsession and Backrooms)

and better tracking for The Odyssey and Spider-Man. Q2 box office came in ahead

of our estimates at $2.97b (+12% y/y; vs. JPMe $2.75b), the highest quarterly BO

achieved post-pandemic.