IMAX Corporation (IMAX) shareholders had the kind of Friday that rewrites a year.
Shares of the premium cinema technology company jumped about 15% on May 22, closing at $39.12, after The Wall Street Journal reported the company is exploring a sale and has approached entertainment companies as potential buyers.
The move erased IMAX’s year-to-date losses in a single session.
It also forced Wall Street to do something it usually avoids on a Friday: rethink an entire thesis before the weekend.
That’s where Wedbush analyst Alicia Reese came in.
Wedbush’s pick of the most likely IMAX buyers narrows the field fast
Reese named four buckets of likely buyers in her note to clients: private equity, Netflix (NFLX), Apple (AAPL), and Sony Group (SONY), according to CNBC.
She kept her outperform rating and $46 price target on the stock.
What stood out was who she left off the list: the major Hollywood studios.
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Her reasoning is practical. IMAX’s value depends on staying neutral. Studios fight each other for premium IMAX release slots, so a studio owner would compromise that neutrality and shrink the platform’s worth to competitors.
That logic also explains why Reese flagged private equity first. As she put it, “PE ownership avoids the platform conflict issue entirely, as it would have no competing interest.”
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Why Apple, Netflix, and Sony each fit the IMAX deal differently
The three corporate names on Reese’s list each fit for different reasons.
- Apple: Buying IMAX would be a “rounding error against Apple’s balance sheet,” Reese wrote, and a useful theatrical platform for Apple TV+’s prestige content push.
- Netflix: Its theatrical slate is thin enough that owning IMAX would not lock rival studios out of the format, removing the antitrust-style conflict that disqualifies most studios.
- Sony: It has no streaming platform of its own and relies on theatrical box office in a structurally different way than its peers. Sony also already builds many of the cameras used to shoot IMAX-format films.
Benchmark’s Mike Hickey took a wider view, raising his price target to $60 from $44 and adding Amazon, Disney, Comcast, and Sphere Entertainment to the possible buyer list, as reported by Invezz.
IMAX’s recent numbers explain why the bidding could be serious
This is not a fading business looking for an exit.
IMAX said it delivered its strongest year ever in 2025, According to Benzinga, with a record global box office, 166 new or upgraded system signings, and 160 installations.
Its share of the U.S. and Canadian box office climbed to 5.2% last year from 3.2% in 2019.
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Premium large-format screens, IMAX included, reached 16% of domestic ticket sales through early April, up from 13% in the same period of 2021, per MarketWatch.
First-quarter revenue came in at $81.4 million, down 6% year over year but ahead of the $80.28 million LSEG analyst estimate.
The company is still guiding to a record $1.4 billion in global box office for full-year 2026.
The case against the IMAX takeover thesis is worth reading, too
Not everyone on the Street agrees a deal gets done at all.
Texas Capital Securities analyst Eric Wold told clients in a Thursday, May 21, note that he would be “surprised if any of the major Hollywood studios” pursued IMAX, given the fight for IMAX release windows.
Wold expects 2026 revenue of $448 million for IMAX and reiterated a $53 price target as a standalone.
Rosenblatt’s Steve Frankel argued in a separate note that investor value is best preserved if IMAX simply stays public.
What IMAX stockholders should watch from here
For readers holding or eyeing IMAX, three things matter more than buyer speculation:
- Deal versus no deal floor: Reese suggested takeover scenarios could set a new floor in the high $30s to low $40s. That floor goes away if talks die.
- CEO signaling: IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond told the December investor day audience IMAX is “incredibly valuable” either as a standalone entity or inside a larger company, CNBC reported. This leaves the door open without forcing a transaction.
- Premium share gains: If IMAX’s box office share keeps climbing, the standalone thesis still works, even without a buyer.
Apple’s services push, Netflix’s theatrical event strategy, and Sony’s hardware-plus-content model all have credible reasons to bid.
The risk is that none of them blink. The Wall Street Journal said the process is early and may not lead to a deal.
In that case, Friday’s 15% pop becomes the ceiling, not the floor.
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