Lionsgate‘s revenue for the first three months of 2025 rose 22% and its movie division profitability soared to its highest level in a decade helped by the box office performance of “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” and “Flight Risk” in the period.
Lionsgate on May 7 officially completed the long-gestating split with Starz premium cable and streaming business, which is now a separately traded company. The quarterly earnings for the period ended March 31, which are the company’s fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, excludes the results of the divested Starz operations.
For the most recent quarter, Lionsgate reported revenue of $1.1 billion (up 22%) and operating income of $94.2 million (up from $19.4 million in the year-earlier period). Net income attributable to shareholders was $21.9 million (or 10 cents per diluted earnings per share), compared with a loss of $54.2 million in the year-ago period.
“We are pleased to report a strong quarter despite a difficult operating environment,” Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer said in prepared remarks. “The same strengths that drove the quarter – another outsized library performance, a diversified motion picture business model, fiscal discipline and the ability to deliver premium television programming to a changing mix of buyers – will continue to be the catalysts of our success as a standalone studio with the ability to create significant incremental value for our shareholders.”
Lionsgate’s Motion Picture segment revenue grew 28% to $526.4 million, while segment profit grew 65% to $135.3 million. Quarterly segment profit was the highest in 10 years, driven by the box office success of midbudget films “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera” (pictured above) and “Flight Risk,” as well as an increase in non-theatrical content deliveries, strong library demand and lower P&A spend.
Television Production segment revenue increased 16% to $543.3 million while segment profit decreased to $40.6 million. Revenue growth was driven by a “substantial increase” in episodic deliveries relative to last year’s strike-impacted March quarter, while the segment profit decline reflected a “difficult comparison” with a library sale of content in the March 2024 quarter. In the most recent quarter, the TV group landed several key series renewals including “Ghosts,” picked up for its fifth and sixth seasons at CBS; “The Rookie,” renewed for an eighth season on ABC; Sherri Shepherd’s “Sherri,” renewed for a fourth season in syndication; and “Yellowjackets,” which was picked up earlier this week for a fourth season by Showtime.
The company’s trailing 12-month library revenue was a record $956 million, up 8% year over year. In the March quarter, library revenue was a record $340 million driven by licensing sales of “The Rookie” to Disney+ and “The Chosen” to Amazon Prime Video.
Lionsgate’s Television Production segment includes the licensing of Starz original series productions to the Starz business, and the ancillary market distribution of Starz original productions and licensed product. Revenue related to the Starz business for the first three months of 2025 was $206.2 million, up 67% year over year.
At CinemaCon last month, Lionsgate touted a film slate that includes “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping,” which will star Jesse Plemons, Ralph Fiennes, Kieran Culkin and Elle Fanning joining newcomers Joseph Zada and Whitney Peak. The film, based on Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins’ bestseller, is slated to open worldwide on Nov. 20, 2026. Francis Lawrence will direct the film, his fifth Hunger Games movie, as well as the adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Long Walk.”
It also announced that Keanu Reeves is returning for “John Wick 5” and that the action franchise is expanding with an animated prequel film and “Caine,” a standalone movie from director-star Donnie Yen. On June 6, 2025, the Ana de Armas-led “Ballerina,” set in the John Wick universe, is set to open in theaters.
Last week, Lionsgate announced that Mel Gibson has chosen Lionsgate to be his studio partner on “The Resurrection of the Christ,” his follow-up to “The Passion of the Christ.”
