IMAX (IMAX) calculates how to reach its $1 million per screen objective (quotes from conf call)

Below are some comments from Imax Corp. (ticker: IMAX) from its May 5, 2005 conference call with investors.

IMAX discusses how it plans to reach its objective of $1 million per screen in 2005:

Our year begins with the spillover of Polar Express into January, where it averaged about $100,000 per screen for the month. Later in January, Disney released James Cameron's Aliens of the Deep, which earned over $140,000 per IMAX screen. Next, in early March, we released the IMAX DMR version of Fox's Robots… the film has grossed approximately $8.5 million…This equates to about $110,000 per IMAX screen. Therefore…IMAX theatres have already grossed about $350,000 per screen…Therefore, our remaining five releases this year need to do an aggregate of $650,000 per screen.

On November 18, we will release…Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire…. We had great success last June with…Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which grossed approximately $14 million worldwide, or about $200,000 per IMAX screen. Then, in late November, IMAX and Warner Bros. expect to re-release the Polar Express, an IMAX 3-D Experience….. we expect strong results again this year…

All of the 2005 films I just discussed, Batman, Charlie, Harry Potter, Magnificent Desolation and the re-release of Polar, together need to gross about $650,000 per screen, or about $130,000 each, less than half the average per-screen performance for our 2004 films.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)