It's shaping up to be a very good year for IMAX.
The company announced Wednesday that for the second quarter ending June 30, gross box office worldwide for the big-screen behemoth was approximately $115 million. That represents a 37 percent increase from last year’s second-quarter box office of approximately $84.2 million.
Though much of the box office growth can be attributed to the success of "Avatar," the IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond said that even excluding the 3D blockbuster, per-screen average through the first six months stands at $647,000. That's a 13 percent increase over the prior-year period.
Those numbers only stand to get stronger over the coming weeks with the release of summer tentpole films such as "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" and "Inception."
Year-to-date, worldwide gross box office from movies converted to the format released on IMAX is $347.2 million, compared to $112.2 million in the first six months of 2009.
The strong second quarter comes on news that IMAX has also been rapidly expanding its worldwide footprint. The company says it has deals for 89 IMAX systems so far this year, compared to 35 for all of 2009.
Last week it announced plans to build two new theaters in Russia, and on Wednesday it unveiled plans to build five IMAX theaters in the Philippines in collaboration with mall operator SM Prime Holdings.
