IMAX returns to Hyderabad after a decade as Asian Cinemas deal targets India's premium boom

IMAX is returning to Hyderabad for the first time in a decade, sealing a partnership with Asian Cinemas to install three IMAX with Laser screens under the AMB Cinemas brand. The agreement, announced at the start of June, marks the large-format specialist's renewed push into one of its fastest-expanding markets and reconnects it with the beating heart of the Telugu film industry.

The first of the new screens will open at AMB Classic in Hyderabad, the upmarket multiplex co-owned by Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu, with completion targeted before the end of 2026. Two further locations are slated to follow in 2028, one of them also in Hyderabad and the third elsewhere in the country.

A homecoming with symbolic weight

Hyderabad's previous IMAX presence ended in 2015 when the Prasads IMAX venue closed. That theatre held a particular place in the company's history, having been among the first IMAX sites in India and a landmark in its early international expansion. Its closure left the Telugu industry's home city without a premium large-format option even as the region's films grew into some of the biggest draws in Indian cinema.

The choice of AMB Classic as the relaunch site is freighted with meaning. The venue is associated with one of Telugu cinema's most bankable stars, and the timing aligns with a release the entire industry is watching: 'Varanasi', the S.S. Rajamouli-directed film starring Mahesh Babu, which is being shot with IMAX-certified cameras and is expected in 2027. Having a flagship IMAX screen ready in the star's own cinema ahead of that release is a marketing coup as much as an exhibition deal.

Riding India's record numbers

The expansion is built on hard commercial data. India delivered a record box office for IMAX in 2025, underscoring the appetite among Indian audiences for premium formats and the willingness to pay a premium ticket price for event films. For a company whose model depends on placing its screens where the biggest titles and most engaged audiences converge, the southern market has become an obvious priority.

• Three new IMAX with Laser screens under the AMB Cinemas brand
• First location at AMB Classic, Hyderabad, targeted to open by end of 2026
• Two further sites planned for 2028, one more in Hyderabad
• IMAX's first Hyderabad presence since the 2015 closure of Prasads IMAX
• Aligned with the IMAX-shot 'Varanasi', starring Mahesh Babu, due in 2027

The premium-format strategy

The Asian Cinemas deal fits a broader pattern in which exhibition players and large-format providers are betting that the future of theatrical lies in differentiation. As streaming absorbs everyday viewing, the cinema's surviving advantage is the experience it offers for spectacle-driven releases, and IMAX with Laser, with its high-resolution projection and bespoke sound, sits at the top of that proposition.

India is a natural testing ground for the thesis. The country produces a steady pipeline of visually ambitious, big-budget films, increasingly from the southern industries, that lend themselves to the premium format. Pairing those releases with a growing IMAX footprint creates a virtuous loop: marquee titles draw audiences to premium screens, and the availability of those screens encourages filmmakers to shoot for the format.

What it means for exhibitors

For Asian Cinemas and the AMB brand, the tie-up brings a globally recognised premium label to its venues, a differentiator in a competitive multiplex market. For IMAX, it deepens a relationship with one of the world's most populous and cinema-loving markets at a time when several mature territories offer slower growth. The partnership is structured to scale gradually, hedging against the risk of over-building while keeping the door open to further sites.

Outlook

Whether the three-screen launch is the start of a larger Indian build-out will depend on how the first venues perform and on the strength of the upcoming theatrical slate. With a film as anticipated as 'Varanasi' on the horizon and Indian box-office numbers for the format already at record levels, the conditions look favourable.

More broadly, the deal is a vote of confidence in the durability of the premium theatrical experience in India, even as streaming reshapes the rest of the market. For Hyderabad, long denied a large-format option, the return of IMAX is a reminder that the city's film industry now commands the kind of investment once reserved for the global majors' home markets.

The NE Times View

IMAX's return to Hyderabad confirms that the premium large-format experience is no longer a metro-Mumbai luxury but a southern growth engine. Tying the launch to a Rajamouli spectacle is canny: Telugu cinema's appetite for grandeur is precisely what these screens were built for. The real test is whether premium pricing can survive beyond event blockbusters, or whether the seats sit empty between the tentpoles that justify them.

This article is original commentary and analysis by The NE Times. Background facts were referenced from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.