Newly-solo Lionsgate on Thursday posted sharply lower overall film and TV businesses’ revenues and a reduced loss for the second quarter of fiscal 2026.
The Hollywood studio, led by CEO Jon Feltheimer, posted a net loss attributable to shareholders at $113.5 million, compared to a year-earlier $163.3 million loss, after spinning off its Starz streaming platform. Investors reacted in after-market trading by sending stock in the studio down by 36 cents, or 5 percent, to $6.67.
Overall studio business revenue fell to $475.1 million, compared to a year-earlier $604 million. Lionsgate posted an earnings per-share loss of 39 cents, compared to a year-earlier per-share loss of 68 cents. The adjusted OIBDA came to $14.1 million.
The newly-launched Lionsgate Studios business is comprised of Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group and Television Studio business, along with a 20,000-strong film and TV library. Starz, also a standalone publicly-traded company, discloses its own financial results.
The company’s studios business, which combines the Motion Picture and TV production segments, saw Motion Picture segment revenue fall to $276.4 million, compared to $409.4 million in the year-ago period. That was due to a tough comparison to the year-earlier period when Lionsgate had five wide releases, against only two wide releases during the latest quarter.
And TV production segment revenue fell to $198.7 million, against a year-earlier $416 million, owing to the timing of episodic deliveries int the quarter, with some pushed into the second half of fiscal 2026. Lionsgate expects “significant growth” in scripted episodic deliveries in fiscal 2027.
The segment profit, a key metric, for the Motion Picture division, came in at $30.5 million, compared to a year-earlier $1.7 million, as the studio rebounded from the impact of an underperforming Borderlands release last year. The TV production segment profit was $12.5 million, against a year-earlier $24.4 million.
During an after-market analyst call, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer argued the studio was primed for growth in the back-half of fiscal 2026 and through fiscal 2027 as it readied a film slate and refilled its TV pipeline with series renewals and new series. He pointed to production having finally wrapped on the Michael biopic from director Antoine Fuqua after summer reshoots, while production continued on the next installment of The Hunger Games and two Resurrection films in the tentpole pipeline.
Adam Fogelson, chair of the studio’s movie division, on the analyst call discussed whether the biopic will expand across two features, as now seems a strong possibility. “Since the last time we were together on an earnings call, we have now had the great pleasure of seeing the director’s cut of the first film, and it is exceptional,” he reported.
“And while we’re not yet ready to confirm plans for a second film, I can tell you that the creative team is hard at work making sure that we’re in a position to deliver more Michael soon after we release the first film,” Fogelson added. Lionsgate showed the first footage from the movie when it dropped an official teaser on Thursday morning, ahead of the biopic now set to hit theaters and Imax on April 24, 2026. Marking his feature debut is Jaafar Jackson in the lead role as the pop music icon.
On the TV front, Feltheimer talked up recent wins. “In a difficult operating environment, our television business has scored three wins in a row with The Studio, winner of a record 13 Emmys including best comedy, the breakout hit The Hunting Wives for Netflix and most recently The Rainmaker – three different types of shows on three different kinds of platforms with three different financial models. All three have been renewed for second seasons,” the Lionsgate boss said in prepared remarks.
Kevin Beggs, chair of the Lionsgate Television Group, said TV buyers these days have been thrifty amid industry consolidation, a trend that might ease with Paramount now in the hands of David Ellison’s Skydance and its apparently greater appetite for more dramas. “Obviously, more buyers than not is good. But unhealthy buyers are not good, and we are seeing some green shoots,” he told analysts.
Feltheimer underlined how securing wins for the studio in an increasingly disrupted and evolving media business was proving an ever-greater challenge on all fronts. “Today, as our world expands into new digital and social media platforms, audiences are harder to find, harder to engage and harder to market to. But they are also consuming more content across more platforms than ever before, offering even more upside to a company like ours that brings to this new environment a massive portfolio of content, a roster of valuable franchises, efficient production models and an entrepreneurial spirit,” he argued.
Feltheimer also talked up Lionsgate reporting $1 billion in trailing 12-month library revenue, a record for the studio.
