SM Cinema, the Philippines’ No. 1 cinema exhibitor with 76 cinema sites nationwide, now sells a movie ticket six different ways. The lineup runs from the giant frame of IMAX and the wraparound 270-degree SCREENX to plush Directors Club recliners, a flexible Event Screen, the familiar Regular Cinema, and a snack counter built to round out the night.
That spread is a bet. While streaming keeps audiences home, the only reliably growing slice of the box office sits at the premium end, and the country’s biggest chain is leaning hard into it.
Six Ways SM Cinema Now Sells a Movie Ticket
For most of cinema history, picking a screening meant picking a showtime. The seat was a seat, the screen was a screen. SM Cinema has spent the past few years pulling that single product apart into a tiered menu, where the format you choose now shapes the night as much as the film does.
The chain frames the change around occasion. A long-awaited blockbuster pushes you toward the big immersive rooms. A date night nudges you to the recliners. A birthday or a gaming session points you to a bookable auditorium. Each tier carries its own price, its own room, and its own reason to exist, and the company has been rolling out theater upgrades across premier malls to widen the choice.
It mirrors what large exhibitors everywhere are doing as they fight for footfall. The everyday ticket still pays the bills, but the headline-grabbing growth is coming from the formats that a phone screen cannot copy.
IMAX and SCREENX: Two Roads to a Bigger Screen
The two showcase formats both promise immersion, but they get there in opposite ways. One makes the front screen enormous. The other breaks the front screen open and pushes the picture down the side walls. Here is how the full menu compares.
| Format | What you get | Scale | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|---|
| IMAX | A single oversized screen, high-resolution image, calibrated sound | Roughly 370 to 500 seats | Spectacle blockbusters, space and action epics |
| SCREENX | Three-wall projection extending the picture left and right | Standard auditorium with side-wall projectors | Action sequences remastered for the format |
| Directors Club | Leather recliners, premium room, private-booking option | Roughly 40 to 56 seats | Date nights, small celebrations |
| Regular Cinema | Digital projection, surround sound, standard seating | Full-size house | Everyday releases, group outings |
What IMAX Does Differently
IMAX leans on raw size and a tightly controlled image. The screen fills more of your field of view than a standard house, the sound system is tuned to the room, and select films are mastered specifically for it. The format is the long-standing benchmark for the premium experience, and SM Cinema lists IMAX houses among its largest, seating several hundred at a time.
How SCREENX Wraps the Room
SCREENX takes a different route. Built by Seoul-based CJ 4DPLEX, the system uses synchronized side-wall projectors to deliver a 270-degree wraparound image during specially remastered scenes, so action spills past the edges of the main screen. SM Cinema opened the first SCREENX auditorium in the Philippines at SM Mall of Asia, and the format now spans more than 435 SCREENX auditoriums across 40 countries. Calling the local launch a “major milestone in our mission to innovate cinematic storytelling,” said Jun Bang, chief executive of CJ 4DPLEX, the company tied the rollout to SM Cinema’s reach as the market leader. Format and showtime details sit on the chain’s official SCREENX schedule page.
Directors Club Trades Scale for Leather Recliners
Not every premium upgrade is about a bigger picture. Directors Club sells comfort, swapping the crowd for a small room of plush leather recliners, sharper projection, and a quieter, more private feel. The houses are intimate by design, seating somewhere between 40 and 56 people.
That smaller footprint opens a second use. Through SM Cinema’s Book A Cinema option, a Directors Club house can be reserved for a private screening, which makes it a popular pick for proposals, anniversaries, and small group treats where the whole theater belongs to one party for the night.
Event Screen Turns the Auditorium Into a Venue
The most telling part of the lineup is the one that barely shows movies. Event Screen reimagines the auditorium as a bookable private venue, a room that can flip from a film showing to a watch party, a gaming session, a karaoke night, a corporate gathering, or a birthday celebration.
The logic is simple. A theater sits empty for large parts of the day, and a screen, a sound system, and tiered seating are useful far beyond a two-hour feature. By renting that space out for events, SM Cinema turns idle inventory into a new revenue line and gives customers a reason to come even when nothing they want to watch is on release.
It also reads as a hedge. If a given week’s slate is thin, an experiential booking still fills the room and keeps the snack counters busy.
For a chain with dozens of sites, that flexibility scales quickly, turning each multiplex into a small events business layered on top of the film one.
Why Premium Is the Only Part of the Box Office Growing
Step back from the menu and a clear industry pattern comes into focus. As overall cinema attendance stays soft against streaming, the premium formats are pulling away from the pack, and the numbers behind that split are striking.
- $1.28 billion in global box office for IMAX in 2025, a record year, up 40% from 2024 and 13% above its previous 2019 peak.
- 3.8% of the worldwide box office captured by IMAX from just over 1,800 locations, even though those screens are a sliver of the global total.
- 16.3% of domestic tickets in the United States now sold for premium large-format (PLF, the category of oversized and enhanced screens) screenings, at an average price near 17 dollars.
The takeaway is consistent across markets. Audiences will still leave the house, but increasingly only when the screen offers something a living room cannot, and they will pay a premium when it does. IMAX has guided toward roughly 1.4 billion dollars in receipts for 2026 on the strength of that demand, as detailed in its record 2025 box office results.
SM Cinema is far from alone in chasing this. In the United States, the third-largest chain has been on a similar push, as covered in our report on Cinemark’s 20 new SCREENX auditoriums timed to major releases. Across both markets, the playbook is the same: stack premium formats, charge more for them, and let the everyday screens hold the base.
What the Premium Push Means for a Regular Saturday Night
For all the new tiers, the ordinary ticket has not gone anywhere. Regular Cinema still runs the latest releases on quality digital projection with surround sound, and for most weekend crowds it remains the default. The premium options sit above it, not in place of it.
The practical question is matching the room to the occasion. A rough guide:
- Big spectacle releases: IMAX for sheer screen size, or SCREENX when the film has been remastered for the wraparound effect.
- Date nights and small celebrations: Directors Club recliners, or a private Book A Cinema screening.
- Birthdays, gaming, karaoke, corporate events: Event Screen, booked as a private venue.
- Everyday movie nights with family or friends: Regular Cinema, paired with the Snack Time counters.
None of it works without the popcorn. SM Cinema’s snack counters round out the visit with freshly popped popcorn, sandwiches, sweets, and drinks, the small ritual that turns a screening into an outing.
The shape of the business is now visible in the lobby. The base of the pyramid stays affordable and familiar, while the premium tiers carry the growth and the higher margins.
When the lights go down on a Saturday in Pasay or Cebu, the only real decision left is how big, how wide, and how comfortable the next two hours should feel.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is SCREENX at SM Cinema?
SCREENX is a 270-degree panoramic format that uses synchronized side-wall projectors to extend the picture beyond the main screen during specially remastered scenes. SM Cinema launched the first SCREENX auditorium in the Philippines at SM Mall of Asia, and the technology, built by CJ 4DPLEX, runs in more than 435 auditoriums across 40 countries.
How is IMAX different from SCREENX?
IMAX delivers a single very large front screen with high-resolution images and calibrated sound, seating roughly 370 to 500 people. SCREENX keeps a standard front screen but adds left and right wall projection for a wraparound effect. IMAX maximizes scale on one surface; SCREENX surrounds you on three.
What is the Directors Club at SM Cinema?
Directors Club is SM Cinema’s premium-comfort tier, built around leather recliner seats in an intimate room that seats about 40 to 56 people. It is aimed at date nights and special occasions, and through the Book A Cinema option it can be reserved for a private screening.
Can you rent an SM Cinema for a private event?
Yes. The Event Screen is designed as a bookable private venue that can host watch parties, gaming sessions, karaoke nights, corporate gatherings, and birthday celebrations. The Directors Club can also be reserved privately through Book A Cinema for a smaller, screening-focused gathering.
Where is the first SCREENX theater in the Philippines?
The country’s first SCREENX auditorium opened at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City, the largest shopping mall in the Philippines. SM Cinema has signaled plans to extend premium formats to more SM Supermalls nationwide following that debut.
Are premium formats more expensive than a regular ticket?
Yes. IMAX, SCREENX, and Directors Club all carry a price premium over a Regular Cinema ticket because of the larger screens, added projection technology, or upgraded seating. Globally, premium large-format tickets sell at a meaningful markup, averaging close to 17 dollars in the United States.
