JD Durkin: Chanda Brashears joins us now, live on the trading floor of the Big Board. She is Senior Vice President of Investor Relations at Cinemark. I’ve been looking forward to this interview all day. Nice to see you, Chanda.
Chanda Brashears: Thanks for having me.
JD Durkin: Thanks for taking the time. So first, Cinemark just posted its best-ever summer at the domestic box office. What is driving this momentum right now?
Chanda Brashears: You know, and before that, we reported our highest second quarter of all time and our first quarter to break $1 billion in revenue. So we’re really excited about the momentum that we’re seeing in the box office and how new movies are trending again.
You know, there’s just so much content that’s available and so many films overperforming their expectations across genres of films. So we’re really excited to see that consumer enthusiasm for theatrical moviegoing.
JD Durkin: Yeah, for good or for bad, we still tend to do a lot of pre-pandemic versus so-called post-pandemic comparisons for everything here on Wall Street. How are we looking in terms of peak moviegoing audience around 2019 versus what we’re seeing this summer?
Chanda Brashears: Well, like I said, we had our highest second-quarter box office of all time, even comparing back to 2019, as well as our highest summer box office of all time. So that beat out 2013.
So we’re really excited, again, about that moviegoing momentum we’re seeing and a lot of really great films coming up for the rest of the year. And 2027 is looking really strong as well.
JD Durkin: So I’ve got to tell you, the two films I saw in the theater this summer, A Fantastic Odyssey, obviously an obsession. I would have to imagine those two were disproportionately responsible for a lot of the success that you saw this last—
Chanda Brashears: I would absolutely agree. Backrooms and Obsession were the sleepers of the year that nobody was expecting, and they did tremendous business. Very exciting.
Odyssey is huge. Spider-Man is the biggest film of all time, actually, just today surpassed Star Wars for that record. So some really big films.
And then it kicked off the summer season with, you know, Project Hail Mary doing some sensational business. Devil Wears Prada, Michael, we’ve had so many great films on the horizon and, again, so excited about the slate to come as well.
JD Durkin: And so you’re really seeing the appetite for people out there. They’ve got options to stay at home on their couch. It’s never been easier to sit there and order whatever you want. But people are really still so aggressively drawn to that in-theater experience. It seems like you’re really seeing that from consumers.
Chanda Brashears: We are. It’s that experiential economy. People are really wanting to get out and do things and share on social media, you know, all of the great things that they’re doing.
And Cinemark continues to lean in with our strategic initiatives, giving them an opportunity to have this sensational guest experience from beginning to end, providing opportunities to upgrade their experience, whether it’s with our private-label premium large format XD, D-BOX motion seats, ScreenX panoramic screens. We have the highest recliner penetration among the major players.
And, you know, we’re continuing to do so much with merchandise and expanded food and beverage. You know, just again, from beginning to end, really making that an exceptional consumer experience.
JD Durkin: Chanda, this might be an impossible question. I don’t even know if you’re allowed to say. Have you had a favorite movie so far here in 2026?
Chanda Brashears: Oh, that is a tough one.
JD Durkin: I know, I figured.
Chanda Brashears: I’m going to give you two.
JD Durkin: Please.
Chanda Brashears: So Devil Wears Prada was just such an iconic film, but Cinemark in particular did something really special. We did “Know Where to Wear It.” And so we dressed up in our ball gowns and our heels with our friends and our daughters. We walked the red carpet to go see the film. So it was memorable.
And then I would also say Michael, because it was just the film that spanned all genres, to be able to see a film and the nostalgia and share that moment with my parents, my husband, my friends and my children all simultaneously. There’s really no film like it. So I would say that that was a really great film to see as well.
I would also say Project Hail Mary was amazing, and what they were able to do with Rocky on the big screen. The book was incredible, and I really thought they did a phenomenal job with the movie.
JD Durkin: Unfortunately, I’m out of time. Please come back. I’ve enjoyed this so much, and I do have to see Spider-Man. We were talking, and afterwards we’ll have you back on the show very soon.
Chanda Brashears: That sounds great. Thanks so much.
