Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation

Good afternoon and welcome to the Lionsgate Studios fourth quarter 2025 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 two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Neelay Shah, Executive Vice President and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for the Lionsgate Studio Corp's fiscal 2025 fourth quarter conference call. We'll begin with opening remarks from our CEO, John Feldheimer, followed by remarks from our CFO, Jimmy Barge. After their remarks, we'll open the call for questions. Also joining 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, President of Worldwide TV and Digital Distribution 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.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On May 7th, we completed the separation of Lionsgate and STARS, and we began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol LION. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our shareholders for your overwhelming support. our board of directors for their patience and guidance throughout a long and complex process, and the hundreds of Lionsgate employees who work tirelessly to bring this important strategic initiative across the finish line. We're confident the separation will unlock significant value, not only for the shareholders of both companies, but for our respective business and talent partners as we position our companies for continued growth. The separation also simplifies our capital structure by collapsing our previous two classes of stock into one. On Monday, June 9th, we hope to see some of you at the New York Stock Exchange as we ring the opening bell to celebrate the launch. Turning to the quarter's highlights, our Motion Picture Group closed the fiscal year with a strong financial quarter driven by a familiar combination. The profitable mid-budget successes of Flight Risk and Den of Thieves 2, robust library sales, strong performances from our multi-platform and direct-to-platform business, and disciplined theatrical P&A spend. Our television group launched Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's critically acclaimed comedy, The Studio, on Apple TV+, where it has already become a major Emmy Awards contender and has been renewed for a second season. Our TV group secured a number of other key series renewals in the quarter, including Ghosts, picked up for its fifth and sixth season on CBS, The Rookie, renewed for an eighth season on ABC, The Sherri Shepherd Show, renewed for a fourth season in syndication, and Yellow Jackets, picked up earlier this week for a fourth season by Showtime. And finally, our library achieved a record performance with trailing 12-month revenue of $956 million, driven by a fourth quarter that was our best quarter ever. We've been able to maintain strong library sales in a challenging environment through a combination of organic replenishment, distribution of third-party titles, library acquisitions, and the rollout of new proprietary FAST and AVOD channels. Turning to our individual businesses, during the quarter our motion picture group unveiled a strong slate of films for our theatrical exhibition partners at CinemaCon last month. Our lineup is notable not only for the strength of the IP, but the breadth of new and repeat talent driving it. Francis Lawrence directing his fifth Hunger Games movie, as well as the adaptation of the gripping Stephen King classic, The Long Walk. Keanu Reeves anchoring our John Wick franchise and also starring with Seth Rogen in Aziz Ansari's comedy Good Fortune. Ruben Fleischer, directing Now You See Me 3 and beginning development of Now You See Me 4. Paul Feig, directing Sidney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried in the eagerly anticipated thriller The Housemaid. Kingdom Story Company, partners on our faith-based hits I Can Only Imagine and Jesus Revolution, preparing I Can Only Imagine 2. And Blumhouse and James Wan's Atomic Monster, collaborating with us on the reimagining of Blair Witch. Adding to our roster of repeat filmmaker relationships, we announced last week that Mel Gibson has chosen Lionsgate to be a studio partner on The Resurrection of the Christ, his long-awaited follow-up to the blockbuster The Passion of the Christ. Most of you have seen the announcements this week of the incredible talent we're putting together for the Hunger Games, Sunrise on the Reaping, with Jesse Plemons, Rafe Fiennes, Kieran Culkin, and Elle Fanning, joining newcomers Joseph Zeta and Whitney Peek, with more star power to come. The film, based on Hunger Games creator Suzanne Collins' bestseller, is one of the hottest properties at the Cannes Film Festival this week, and we are already seeing a corresponding major uptick in the sales of all of the Hunger Games library titles. The film opens worldwide on November 20th, 2026. In two weeks, you'll see Ana de Armas squaring off against assassin and former mentor Keanu Reeves in Ballerina, the first major release of our fiscal 26 slate. We're holding the Ballerina world premiere in London today, and fan response to early material and preliminary tracking indicate that it will be a strong addition to the John Wick universe. That universe continues to expand with production scheduled to begin in September on the upcoming John Wick spinoff, Kane, directed by and starring Donnie Yen, an animated John Wick prequel in the works, and Chad Stahelski and Keanu beginning development on John Wick Chapter 5. And if you're in Las Vegas, please check out the John Wick Experience branded attraction, which opened to strong ticket sales in March. In regard to our Michael Jackson biopic, We're excited about the three and a half hours of amazing footage from producer Graham King and director Antoine Fuqua. And we'll be announcing a definitive release strategy and timing in the next few weeks. I would note that it is likely we will move Michael out of the fiscal year, which will impact fiscal 26 financial results, but will bolster an already strong fiscal 27 slate. Turning to television, in addition to the success of The Studio and Ghosts, we're continuing to add other premium properties, such as Spartacus, House of Asher, which has wrapped its first season of production for Starz, The Rainmaker, the adaptation of John Grisham's bestseller being readied for USA Network, and a new version of the classic Robin Hood saga for MGM+. Behind them, we continue to develop the Twilight TV adaptation Midnight Sun for Netflix, the John Wick Under the High Table series, and a TV adaptation of the hit comedy Bad Moms. In addition, the assets we acquired with our E1 deal are performing well. We finished integrating these content assets into our company, strengthened key properties like the Rookie and Yellow Jackets, reinforced existing talent partnerships, launched new series, Mistletoe Murders and Private Eyes West Coast, monetized thousands of additional library titles and reduced overhead. Turning to three arts, our premier talent management and production company has always been a leader in broadcast network comedies with The Office and Parks and Recreation. Now it has expanded that leadership into streaming comedies with the second season renewals of the hit series Nobody Wants This, A Man on the Inside, Running Point, and The Four Seasons, all for Netflix. And you'll be hearing more about our initiatives to grow and diversify three arts into adjacent new areas of representation in the near future. We've also launched a major initiative to become a force in the creator economy. We're creating original content for digital platforms, negotiating with two leading advertising agencies to form brand partnerships to support that content, and building digital businesses for our talent at the studio and three arts, initiatives that are all designed to take advantage of our critical mass of IP to unlock its full potential. And with half of YouTube viewing now taking place on traditional connected TVs, our content portfolio will have more applications in the new digital ecosystem than ever before. In closing, the separation of Lionsgate and Starz doesn't diminish the headwinds in our operating environment, but it does give both companies more flexibility in responding to them. And it enables us to launch an exciting new chapter in the growth of our studio. positioning ourselves in the sweet spot of the entertainment ecosystem, making and delivering great content for our buyers, expanding opportunities for our talent in old and new businesses, and translating our unique portfolio of assets into incremental value for our shareholders, partners, and audiences. In a moment, Jimmy will take you through the component parts of a very strong quarter whose drivers, another outsized library performance, our motion picture group's diversified model, and a strong post-strike uptick in deliveries of key television series demonstrate what we can do when all the pieces of our business are working as they should. And it affirms our confidence in a content investment strategy that enables us to refill our content pipelines in fiscal 26 while positioning us for a strong growth year in fiscal 27. Jimmy?