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Lionsgate, now without Starz results, on Thursday posted lower overall studio business revenues and a widened loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2026.

The Hollywood studio, led by CEO Jon Feltheimer, during the first quarter recorded a net profit attributable to shareholders at $108.9 million, compared to a year-earlier $59.4 million loss, on overall studio business revenue falling to $556 million, compared to a year-earlier $590.7 million. The total revenue line for the latest quarter beat a Wall Street estimate by $3 million.

Lionsgate posted an earnings per-share loss of 40 cents, compared to a year-earlier per-share loss of 24 cents. Adjusted OIBDA came to a loss of $3.7 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 revenue fall to $267.3 million, compared to $349.6 million in the year-ago period. Lionsgate said the prior year period had gains from from carry-over profits from fiscal 2024 titles like The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes.

During the latest first quarter, Ballerina, a spin-off from the John Wick franchise, was the main theatrical release out of Lionsgate, with Shadow Force and Hurry Up Tomorrow also filling screens at the multiplex. During an after-market analyst call, CEO Feltheimer said the studio was laying the ground “toward returning to the solid and significant growth in fiscal 27 that we’ve previously projected.”  

He pointed to three major tentpoles anchoring the fiscal 2027 movie slate: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which has just started production in Spain ahead of a Thanksgiving 2026 release; the Michael Jackson biopic Michael  dated for a April 24, 2026 release as it shifts to next year; and Mel Gibson’s Resurrection of the Christ, the follow-up to The Passion of the Christ, to be released in two parts. The first film will open on Good Friday in March 2027, and the second film will roll out six weeks later on Ascension Day in May 2027.

Feltheimer alluded to the recent domestic box office underperformance for Ballerina, but added the film is nearing $140 million at the worldwide box office and doing well in ancillary markets with John Wick fans. 

Elsewhere during the latest quarter, TV production revenue rose to $288.5 million, against a year-earlier $241.1 million, on an increase in episodic deliveries and more profitable new series. “Though we continue to see pressure in the broader TV operating environment, we are continuing to deliver noisy properties that resonate across every genre, economic model and type of platform,” Feltheimer told analysts.

He pointed to premium TV series like Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s The Studio for Apple TV+ and The Hunting Wives on Netflix as performing for Lionsgate. Upcoming TV titles include the gladiator drama Spartacus: House of Ashur and the spinoff Power: Origins for Starz.

The segment profit, a key metric, for the Motion Picture division, came in at $2.4 million, compared to a year-earlier $85.2 million. The TV Production segment profit came in at $26 million, compared to a year-earlier $10.7 million.

On the analyst call, Feltheimer addressed the strategic possibilities in bringing in a partner to help run and grow the management and production company 3 Arts Entertainment, with an eye to possibly reducing the studio’s debt load.

“They’re doing a great job. They’re (3 Arts) on a roll in a really hot sector, and there’s lots of investor interest in it. We’ve spent some money on acquiring two terrific management companies (One is A&A Management). But, for sure, we’re cognizant of our balance sheet and if we can bring in the right partner to help us fund the growth and help us a little on the balance sheet, I think that’s something we would certainly and are considering,” Feltheimer added. Lionsgate has a majority 75 percent stake in 3 Arts.  

On the mergers and acquisitions front, Feltheimer defended the recent separation of Lionsgate’s studio business from Starz for opening up strategic possibilities for the studio in a disrupted and consolidating entertainment industry. “We understand our earnings power, but also understand the scale we have, that I think doing some kind of strategic transaction down the road is something that’s probably going to happen, there’s lots of ways that could happen and we’re pretty focused on it,” he said.

Feltheimer spent much of the call touting the value of his studio’s content library, its movie franchises, the stake in 3 Arts and ancillary markets like video gaming and Broadway shows to underline Lionsgate’s future earnings power after its separation from Starz, and by implication the studio’s appeal to potential suitors. “I’m not going to put a number on it, but I would say that would be indicative to me of how you would value some of the parts,” he argued.

On the call, Adam Fogelson, chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, gave an update on Lionsgate, Hasbro and Barbie outfit LuckyChap moving forward on Monopoly, an adaptation of the board game. The Dungeons & Dragons duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have delivered a first draft and revisions continue, while Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap banner is producing. “We are well down the field on this first step in the creative process, and I think we are excited about the possibility of getting this movie into production,” Fogelson reported.

And Lionsgate also updated development on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight animated TV series Midnight Sun for Netflix. “We’ve had an amazing experience developing the scripts. We had an incredible table read with a full cast assembled. Recently, we’ve been seeing some early animatics,” Kevin Beggs, Lionsgate Television Group chair and chief creative officer, told analysts as that project continues to move forward.

Eddie Palmieri, the Grammy-winning Nuyorican pianist, bandleader and composer who helped innovate Afro-Caribbean music in the States and transform the New York salsa scene, died on Wednesday. He was 88.

According to a post on his official Instagram, Palmieri passed away in his Hackensack, N.J., home. The New York Times confirmed via his youngest daughter, Gabriela Palmieri, that his death came after “an extended illness.”

Multiple celebrities chimed in to pay their respects, including Spike Lee, Ramon Rodriguez and representatives from Fania Records, the pioneering New York salsa label, also released a statement.

“[On Wednesday], Fania Records mourns the loss of the legendary Eddie Palmieri, one of the most innovative and unique artists in music history,” the statement said. Palmieri briefly recorded music with the label but also released music under Tico, Alegre, Concord Picante, RMM and Coco Records.

Others took to social media to mourn the loss, including David Sanchez, a Grammy-winning jazz tenor saxophonist from Puerto Rico, who uploaded a slideshow of photographs of the two. Sanchez recounted the time when his soprano saxophone was stolen — and Palmieri helped him pay for a new one. “Your being and your music will continue to live on in the hearts of many,” Sanchez wrote in the Instagram caption.

Palmieri’s contemporary Chuchito Valdes, a Grammy-winning Cuban pianist and bandleader, also chimed in with an Instagram post lamenting the loss: “A sad day for music. One of the greatest of all time is gone, an innovator. The man who revolutionized salsa and Latin jazz. My great friend.”

Born on Dec. 15, 1936, in East Harlem to Puerto Rican parents from Ponce, Palmieri was the younger brother of Charlie Palmieri, the late piano legend known as the “Giant of the Keyboards.”

The family later moved to the South Bronx, where they opened up a luncheonette called “Mambo”: a name chosen by young Eddie, who was enthralled by the Cuban dance hall rhythms. He often controlled the jukebox with blissful Latin jazz tunes by Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez and Machito.

Palmieri was deeply influenced and inspired by his older brother, who was nine years his senior and introduced him to prominent big-band acts of the 1940s, like Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Woody Herman, all of whom seemed to dissolve by the end of World War II. Though Palmieri had an itch to lean into the timbales like Tito Puente, he would eventually follow in his brother’s footsteps and take piano lessons from Margaret Bonds, one of the most prominent African American concert pianists at the time.

Although he briefly joined his uncle’s orchestra, Chino y sus Almas Tropicales, as a timbal player, Palmieri rose to fame as a pianist, playing with various bands including the Eddie Forrester Orchestra, Johnny Segui and His Orchestra, and eventually Tito Rodriguez and His Orchestra, which was a main act at the Palladium Ballroom between 1958 to 1960.

“In the audience, you could have maybe a Marlon Brando, Kim Novak, all the Hollywood starlets because it was the height of the mambo,” said Palmieri in a 2013 interview with Jo Reed. “On Saturday, you had the blue-collar, mostly Puerto Rican. And then Sunday was black, Afro-American. It was intermingled or different nationalities that had nothing to do whether you were green, purple, white, we came to dance.”

But in 1961, Palmieri went on to start his own band, La Perfecta, an ironic title given its not-so-perfect setup. It formed as an eight-piece Cuban conjunto, which ditched the traditional jazzy saxophone. There were timbales, congas, bongos, bass, piano and vocals — but with a twist of its own kind: the inclusion of two trombones, played by Barry Rogers and Jose Rodriguez, instead of the costly four-set trumpets. Palmieri also added a whistling flute, played by George Castro, for a charanga edge (in the place of a traditional violin).

“La Perfecta changed everything in the history of our genre, in my opinion. Certainly in New York,” said Palmieri. “And then influenced the world, because after that all the pawn shops got rid of their trombones.”

His group helped usher in the iconic salsa genre with their first album, “Eddie Palmieri and His Conjunto ‘La Perfecta,’” dubbing him the nickname “Madman of salsa.” However, he was not too fond of the emerging term, which seemed to cram different styles like mambo, charanga, rumba, guaracha and danzón into one single category.

“Afro-Cuban is where we get the music,” explained Palmieri in a 2012 interview with the Smithsonian Oral History Project. “The influence of the Puerto Rican is the one [that] upheld the rhythmical patterns and the genre of Cuba. So then that becomes Afro-Caribbean.”

La Perfecta went on to release its most famed album, “Azúcar Pa’ Ti” in 1965. It included the song “Azúcar,” an eight-minute track that was later added to the National Recording Registry in 2009.

In 1976, Palmieri became the first to win a Grammy for the inaugural category of best Latin recording, for his album “Sun of Latin Music.” He holds a total of eight Grammy awards. In 2013, the National Endowment for the Arts honored him as a Jazz Master and the Latin Grammys granted him a Lifetime Achievement Award.

But Eddie Palmieri’s impact spanned beyond his own accomplishments. He was a mentor, a teacher and an advocate for Latin music and culture, which includes advocating twice for the inclusion of the Latin jazz album category in the Grammys — first in 1995, then again in 2012 after its removal.

Palmieri was predeceased by his wife of 58 years, Iraida Palmieri, who passed away in 2014 — and who he often referred to as “Mi Luz Mayor.” He is survived by his four daughters, Renee, Eydie, Ileana and Gabriela; his son, Edward Palmieri II; and four grandchildren.