And then like you said, as we think about Apple and Amazon coming into the fold, and we think about more of these other types of non-traditional films, at least when we look at that, we clearly see a scenario where two to three years out, we could be looking at more content than ever, more releases than we’ve ever seen in the marketplace, just because of those dynamics. Specific to your question on Apple and Amazon, the conversations we’ve had with them, they’ve been very pleased with the results as far. Amazon, they’ve — you saw with MGM earlier this year, Creed III was a big film. That was the biggest in the whole Rocky franchise to date. They were very pleased with Air. They’re working on building their slate again just taking a little bit of time just because of the dynamics we talked about.
But they clearly have expressed intentions of at least 8 to 12 films per year. And Apple was really just getting going. They had been operating at a slightly smaller level. And now they’re in business with major filmmakers. They’ve got three huge releases over the next five months, including Killers of Fire Moon, which is out now. So they’re just getting into it. But same thing, there’s real value they see in this space. And then, you want to talk —
Melissa Thomas: Yes. Mike, I’ll hit the margin point. So our performance over the last couple of quarters combined with the potential benefits we see of the strategic initiatives that we’re pursuing. With that, we certainly have optimism about the potential of our business over the long term once the industry recovery stabilizes. We do have many revenue generating as well as cost mitigating initiatives that we are pursuing to try to return to pre-pandemic margin levels on a full year basis and we’re certainly working diligently to try to do so. As you know, the primary drivers, certainly go-forward margins are going to be attendance in box office. But there are other factors beyond that, like market share per caps and average ticket prices that we’ll need to see, whether those remain at elevated levels as well as our ability to offset further inflationary headwinds that we may see and the overall value that we’re able to deliver from our strategic initiatives.
But certainly optimistic based on what we’ve been able to deliver over the past few quarters.
Mike Hickey: Thank you.
Sean Gamble: Thanks, Mike.
Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Jim Goss of Barrington Research. Please go ahead.
Jim Goss: Thank you. Sean, you mentioned earlier Showtime planning capabilities among some of the other operating efficiency efforts you might make. And I was wondering, are you looking at, say, fewer screenings per day when attendance is light, or more screen allocation when movies are hot? I know, traditionally, you’ve done that quite a lot. But I wonder if you’ve been able to sort of condense the time the platform is in use if that’s necessary? And how are those decisions influenced by studio agreements and mandates? And what is the perceived value creation on either revenue or cost side from such efforts?
Sean Gamble: Great question, Jim. I guess the short answer is yes, we are doing all of those things. What we’ve continued to do is just enhance our capabilities with that. We were using a tremendous amount of data at a very low level, theater by theater by day par to really hone in on what is the optimal overall window, Showtime window throughout the day, as well as when we talk about Showtime optimization, how do we pack more overall show times into that window. So conversation with the studios — even if we may wind up having some shorter windows based on demand in a particular weekday, we’re able to get more shows within that timeframe, which still can deliver real success. So that’s I think part of the — it’s one of the many things we’re doing to help our overall efficiencies and margins as we’re looking at profitability by really hour and daypart so we can kind of hone in on forecast for demand, forecast for attendance, and whether or not we should be open or whether we should be condensing the schedule in a given day.
So there’s still plenty more things we’re working on in that regard. But we’ve advanced it significantly over the last few years. And it’s one of the initiatives that I think is helping our overall operating efficiencies. But as far as the conversation with the studios go, it’s been really positive. And I think they understand the rationale for that. They benefit from it. And when you look at also the overall results of our market share growth over the course of the last three years too, it’s something else we point to. We’re tending to outperform the industry and provide a greater value to the studios because of not only Showtime optimization, but many of these other initiatives that we’ve been working on, whether it’s our marketing focus, in particular, the many different ways that we’re working on driving incremental attendance and frequency.
Jim Goss: Okay. Thank you. And one other then. It seems like you’d probably have a little less carryover opportunity coming into January and February than you did last year with — earlier this year rather with Avatar. Do you have any specific plans to provide something to your comp against that? And also, is there streaming content that did not have theatrical runs that might be candidates for that void created by the strikes?
Sean Gamble: I think we’ll have to see. Clearly, January got a huge lift this year from Avatar and Puss in Boots. I would say at the start, well, we all had hopes that Avatar would be a huge carryover, didn’t fully know and Puss and Boots I would say was a pleasant surprise in terms of just how that kept running. So I wouldn’t discount the potential for the films at the end of this year and what they might be able to do. I think it really just depends on the quality of those films, how they resonate with audiences. We could see some of that play through. Our general practice when we look at the overall number of releases in the marketplace is to try to figure out are there other types of campaigns or bring backs or ways to fill gaps if it looks like there could be a lighter period.
So we’ve got a lot of those types of ideas in motion for the entirety of the year, and looking to kind of call on those depending on how things are playing out. I do think too, there still is the potential for shifting around. We saw a lot of that recently in the fourth quarter even where some of these faith-based films and some of these smaller titles actually moved in to spaces when some of the larger films moved out into the fourth quarter because of the strike — moved out into next year because of the strike impact. So we could also see some shuffling around like that in the schedule opportunistically from some of the other types of films based on just how overall carry through is playing out.
