Cinema stocks fall after Trump's tariff threat on foreign-made films

Shares of theater operators fall in premarket trading after President Donald Trump unveils 100% tariff on movies produced outside U.S.

Cinemark Holdings CNK.N falls 5.6% to $28.59 and AMC Entertainment Holdings AMC.N down 0.4% at $2.67

IMAX Corp IMAX.N falls 2.3% to $24.30

American media stocks also tumbled after this announcement

Barclays says it is not clear who will pay the tariff or how it will be calculated, given that U.S. studios are among the biggest producers of content globally

Adds, "The immediate impact of this is likely to be that the aggregate production volume of content will fall globally"

If "movie" is defined only as something in theaters, then studios will in effect be forced to follow Netflix's lead and limit theatrical releases - Barclays

In Q1 2025, 44.7% of the content available from Amazon Prime Video AMZN.O, Apple TV+ AAPL.O, Disney+ DIS.N, Netflix NFLX.O and Paramount+ PARA.O was produced in the U.S., according to data from Gracenote, a content data business unit of Nielsen