Imax shares rose on Tuesday after Goldman Sachs issued a bullish note on the stock.
What surprised was the investors note came from analyst Stephen Laszczyk, who has long been more bearish on Imax than peers and has moved off of a longstanding sell rating for Imax. “While several of the key tenets of our original Sell Thesis have played out over the last ~three years, including i) slower-than-anticipated recovery in industry film supply, and ii) a range-bound overall domestic box office, we underestimated the degree to which Imax would be able to leverage its industry relationships and programming flexibility to take box office market share, return margins to pre-pandemic levels, and become an attractive potential M&A target,” Laszczuk wrote in the Nov. 25 report.
He upgraded the film technologies company’s shares to neutral from sell, and increased his price target to $34 from $22 “to reflect the growing strategic value of Imax within the media industry.” That optimism sent stock in Imax up by 83 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $36.83.
In his note, Laszczyk said Imax had seen its shares rise in the last year “against a challenged secular backdrop, where domestic box office remains constrained… but Imax box (office) has surpassed pre-pandemic levels driven by i) better indexing, ii) growth in international/local language box contribution, iii) expansion of the screen install base, and iv) greater studio-funded marketing.”
The Goldman Sachs analyst recalibrating his view on Imax follows a recent July 25, 2025 report where Laszczyk maintained his sell rating, and with a price target of $18.00. He caveated his latest price target update by arguing much will hinge on how top Hollywood titles like Avatar 3 perform on Imax screens into 2026 and beyond, and whether recent momentum in screen installs can be maintained as consumers continue to embrace blockbuster movies on premium theatrical platforms like Imax screens.
But another measure of what Laszczyk recasting his growth view means to Imax comes with a look back to Sept. 2023 when company CEO Rich Gelfond was quizzed by the analyst at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference.
At one point, Gelfond turned the tables on Laszczyk: “Stephen that gives me a good opportunity to ask you a question, which is, Goldman’s had a sell on Imax for two years. First, the price target was $12, then another sell on $14, then another sell and moved $15. So you keep moving the price target up, but it’s always a sell and now the price is $19 and it’s still a sell and we’re tracking an answer to your question in excess of kind of the best year ever in Imax. What do we have to do to demonstrate to you and Goldman that we’re not an exhibitor? And by the way, almost every other analyst has a buy on us. I’m just curious about that.”
Laszczyk said his price target was more a “function of the broader theatrical ecosystem” than a focus on one company or its business model. But with his latest update, the Goldman Sachs analyst has moved closer in agreement to Gelfond’s longstanding pitch to Wall Street: “We are not an exhibitor.”
And that potentially boost’s Imax’s appeal as a takeover target. “The company is based on an asset-light, low net leverage, licensing-focused operating model that does not rely on generating its own IP or maintaining its own physical infrastructure (like theaters or sound stages), making this a relatively easy media asset to operate (potentially widening the aperture of interested buyers),” Laszczuk wrote.
