Lionsgate Studios Corp.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Lionsgate first quarter fiscal 2027 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, Please press star, then 2. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Neelay Shah, EVP, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for the Lionsgate Studios Corporation's fiscal 2027 first quarter conference call. We'll begin with opening remarks from our CEO, John Feldtheimer, followed by remarks from our CFO, Jimmy Barge. After their remarks, we'll open the call for questions. Also joining us on the call today are Vice Chairman Michael Burns, COO Brian Goldsmith, Chairman of the TV Group, Kevin Beggs. Chairman of the Motion Picture Group, Adam Fogelson. Chief Revenue Officer, Jim Packer. And Senior Advisor to the Office of the CEO at Lionsgate and Co-CEO of 3Arts, Brian Weinstein. The matters discussed on the call also include forward-looking statements, including those regarding the performance of future fiscal years. Such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially and adversely from those described in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. This includes the risk factors set forth in our public filings for Lionsgate Studios Corp. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect any future events or circumstances. I'll now turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Nealey, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to report another quarter with strong financial results and growing momentum across our business. Our pure play content strategy is working. The balance sheet is strengthening faster than anticipated. Our portfolio of intellectual property is becoming ever more franchise driven and valuable. Library monetization remains a significant competitive advantage. and our company is increasing strategic optionality in a media landscape that continues to place growing value on scaled content assets. In our film business, we've launched two new marquee branded properties, Michael and the Housemaid, in a span of just four months, ending the first half of the calendar year with domestic box office market share over 10%. Driven by these films and our strong library, Our motion picture group reported its best first quarter results ever. Beyond the box office results, both our performance and the type of content driving this performance, bold, original, and provocative, are reinforcing the Lionsgate brand in real and tangible ways, attracting new creative projects, expanding our filmmaker relationships, and paving the way for new partnerships that will continue to drive us forward. We've lined up a slate that includes more than a dozen branded, repeatable properties over the next three years. Four of these films have wrapped production and are being readied for release. Early indicators for The Hunger Games' sunrise on the reaping show that it has the potential to become one of the biggest Hunger Games movies ever. The marketing campaign for Mel Gibson's epic two-part Resurrection of the Christ will kick off next month with a theatrical re-release of The Passion of the Christ in Dolby and 4K. We wrap production on John Rambo, directed by Yomari Hellender and starring breakout talent Noah Centineo, as we rebuild the Rambo property into an important Lionsgate film and television franchise. It's set for release next June. And we also wrapped production on Kane, with Donnie Yen directing and starring in a movie featuring one of the most talked-about characters in the John Wick universe, also set for release next year. We're preparing to start production on three others. We just announced the addition of Brittany Snow, co-star of our Netflix hit series The Hunting Wives, to a Housemaid's Secrets cast that also includes Sydney Sweeney, Kirsten Dunst, and Paul Anthony Kelly. Production is slated to begin in October for a December 2027 release. Writer Chris Thomas Devlin has turned in an incredible script for our groundbreaking new chapter of Blair Witch in partnership with Blumhouse and James Wan's Atomic Monster to be directed by rising star and the three arts client Dylan Clark. And we're out to cast on Naruto. which is shaping up to be a major tentpole the next movie from record-breaking Spider-Man brand-new-day filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton based on the top-ranked manga property in the world. And with our diversified slate strategy, we're balancing this trove of IP with great original storytelling driven by incredible talent in front of and behind the camera. All of this is happening against the backdrop of a resurgent domestic box office heading for its first $10 billion year since before the pandemic. Turning to television, there has been a paradigm shift that we believe plays to our strengths. The name of the game in television used to be deep relationships with a handful of major buyers, first the broadcast networks, then the leading cable platforms, and more recently the streamers. But today, there are many new players throughout the television ecosystem, and our strategy is focused on diversification, having the creative strengths, pricing flexibility, and innovative business models to play across a wide range of different platforms and different types of series in an increasingly fragmented world. We're on the cusp of going perfect 13 for 13 in current scripted series renewals, and notably, that success is spread across 12 different buyers. Our ability to cast a wide net was evident in the two series pickups we secured this week. Amazon's pickup of Friends co-creator Marta Kaufman's improvisational comedy Dinks, which if you didn't know means dual income, no kids, driven by an innovative partnership with media giant Publicis Group, and the pickup of the medical action thriller Trauma, think Die Hard in a Hospital, starring Richard Madden with Prime Video streaming in the U.K., and Paramount Plus streaming in the US and the rest of the world. But one thing in the television landscape hasn't changed, the rewards of playing the long game. When we bought Starz in 2016, the original Power series had just finished its third season. Lionsgate and Starz collaborated on Growing Power through a total of six hit seasons, extending it into three hit spinoffs, Raising Kanan and Force, and expanding the Power universe with the upcoming new pickups, Power Origins and Power Legacy. Together, we've built a strong, enduring, and immensely valuable franchise spanning at least six different series and more than 200 episodes. That value was evident last week when we licensed the first four Power series to Netflix, all four internationally, and the original Power worldwide for the next three years beginning in November. The deal proved three things. Streamers need a lot of content, we have a lot of content, and that content becomes more and more valuable as it plays everywhere in the world. Turning to the library, we've reported another strong quarter of trailing 12-month revenue. What's interesting to note because it speaks to the depth and diversity of our library is that the biggest individual contributor in the quarter was a 38-year-old movie, Dirty Dancing. It's also worth mentioning that our film and television backlog grew to a robust $1.5 billion in the quarter. We expect this strong backlog to translate into growth in upcoming library quarters. In closing, we continue to see encouraging signs in our operating environment. The domestic box office is strengthening as a new generation of moviegoers embraces the theatrical experience. New buyers and partners are emerging throughout the television ecosystem for those companies willing to look outside the usual places. Streamer demand for film and television series is helping to keep our library business strong. Our three arts business continues to scale and diversify at a time when management companies have become increasingly valuable gateways to the media ecosystem. And AI, properly harnessed, is creating new opportunities to reduce cost, enhance revenue, and accelerate the production process. That's the environment to which we're continuing to adapt our studio, becoming a little leaner, ever more focused, collaborating with digital and traditional storytellers alike, maintaining an entrepreneurial approach to both content and culture, and above all, continuing to grow our incredibly valuable portfolio of branded intellectual properties. Now I'll turn things over to Jimmy.