On Jim Continenza’s first day on the job as Eastman Kodak govt chairman in 2019, he bought a name from a star Hollywood filmmaker telling him the corporate was making an enormous mistake.
The images expertise firm was within the technique of shutting down its acetate manufacturing facility, which makes one of many key substances utilized in movie. Christopher Nolan, the director behind main motion pictures like “Inception” and “Oppenheimer,” urged Continenza to cease the method.
“He goes, ‘Don’t flip this off. Please have a look.’ And I did,” Continenza, now CEO, advised CNBC. “He was proper. I began it as a result of I shoot 35 millimeter [film], and I am like, ‘Why would one of many biggest administrators of all time even have this dialog?'”
Continenza, a self-proclaimed “turnaround specialist,” stated he rapidly realized how central movie was to Kodak’s roots, and the way it may very well be one in all its greatest strengths as he fought to carry the corporate again from teetering on the sting of chapter.
Quick ahead roughly seven years, and a number of 2026 Oscar-winning motion pictures, together with “One Battle After One other” and “Sinners,” have been shot on Kodak movie. It is a part of a much bigger pattern because the class sees a resurgence fueled by each a nostalgia for movie in Hollywood and by youthful shoppers.
That street wasn’t easy, although. The corporate declared chapter in 2012 and reemerged a yr later. Then it cautioned final yr that its monetary circumstances “elevate substantial doubt about Kodak’s capability to proceed as a going concern.”
Within the second-quarter earnings the place it made that going concern assertion, Kodak posted a 12% lower in gross revenue, with thousands and thousands in debt obligations.
However Continenza stated it was one step in an extended course of towards rebuilding the corporate to its former success.
CEO of Kodak Jim Continenza speaks onstage throughout Kodak’s Movie Awards at ASC Clubhouse on March 2, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.
Rodin Eckenroth | Getty Pictures
Final month, the corporate’s earnings report regarded totally different. Its fourth-quarter gross revenue reached $67 million, a 31% enhance from the yr prior. Kodak additionally stated it had decreased its annual curiosity expense by roughly $40 million.
Continenza stated on the time that the outcomes have been indicators of the long-term plan he started executing in 2019. He advised CNBC that he selected Kodak as his ultimate firm to revive earlier than closing his chapter as a C-suite govt, having beforehand served in management roles at communication firms together with AT&T and Lucent.
“This is what our purpose is: We’ll create jobs for the subsequent technology. Make no mistake, we’ll repair this firm and put it on a steady basis and put constructing blocks to develop all of the techniques,” Continenza stated. “We did not put in what we’d like, we put in what we would like, and that is a distinction.”
Troubled waters
In a digitally evolving society, Kodak has been combating to maintain its place and relevancy.
The corporate’s 2012 chapter safety got here after it failed to enhance its funds as digital images took off and revolutionized the business. When it reemerged the next yr as a smaller firm, it shifted its major focus to industrial printing.
Although it is not an organization that’s largely lined by traders anymore, Melius Analysis analyst Ben Reitzes wrote in a observe final yr that the onset of digital expertise posed a major setback for Kodak.
“On the time, Kodak administration advised us that movie would co-exist with digital cameras and extra images can be taken — and extra would have to be printed by Kodak,” he wrote.
Nonetheless, Kodak confronted its struggles. Its inventory sank greater than 35% in 2014, persevering with to steadily fall over the subsequent few years and hitting an all-time low of $1.55 per share through the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
Final August, the greater than 100-year-old images firm stated it had roughly $155 million in money and almost $600 million in loans.
A Kodak spokesperson stated on the time that the going concern language needed to be included as a result of Kodak didn’t have sufficient out there liquidity to repay its debt, due inside 12 months. Nonetheless, the corporate stated it was assured it might repay a good portion of that mortgage earlier than it turned due by terminating its pension plan and stated the disclosure was only a required technical report.
Wall Avenue traders did not like what they heard. The inventory plunged from a worth of roughly $7 per share a couple of days prior to only over $5 per share on the day of earnings.
“We might have carried out a greater job on it, as a result of to us, it wasn’t as dire straits, it was extra of a GAAP accounting coincidence by dates,” Continenza stated, including that it was a “timing difficulty” for the loans.
Rolls of Kodak Gold movie cling on a shelf on the Precision Digital camera & Video retailer on Aug. 12, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Pictures
Continenza stated Kodak’s foremost challenges have been in its “enormous tranches” of debt and an absence of communication with its shareholders and prospects.
The CEO stated he is by no means bought a share of Kodak and as a substitute purchased inventory after the corporate issued its going concern disclosure.
“You have to put the work in and the long-term investments, and you have to be methodical, however you have to repair your operations, and I’ve spent seven years of doing it,” he stated. “[It’s] a 130-plus yr previous firm, proper? You’ll be able to think about what’s within the attic.”
Defining success
Continenza stated he is been intentional about instituting long-term adjustments since he took over the corporate. He is modified about 90% of the corporate’s management, paid off greater than $400 million in debt and reorganized the corporate’s priorities to concentrate on print and superior supplies and chemical substances.
He stated it was additionally necessary to be “clear” together with his staff and acknowledged that turning across the firm would imply layoffs and staffing adjustments.
“Very first thing I all the time do is exit and get individuals who need to maintain the corporate and purchase them out, and that is what we did,” he stated. “I bought a board and traders who love what we’re doing — we maintain them knowledgeable, and so they assist information us.”
As he examined what labored for the corporate, Continenza stated he noticed a chance with Era Z and the resurgence of the movie aesthetic. The look of images and movies shot on movie captures one thing that “penetrates your coronary heart and soul,” he stated.
Kodak leaned into the analog and authenticity pattern, investing its sources in its movie capacities and creating merchandise that customers, administrators and filmmakers alike have been excited about.
Continenza stated he additionally refinanced the corporate thrice and rightsized its stability sheet.
It appears to have hit the correct observe on Wall Avenue. Over the previous yr, Kodak’s inventory has shot up almost 100%.
Kodak 1-year chart
“We’re doing our job. The inventory’s not presupposed to spike, it is presupposed to crawl, as a result of that is how we develop,” he stated. “I do not take a look at our inventory worth. I do not care. I could not inform you what it’s at the moment. I am a long-term investor.”
Continenza stated success to him will imply persevering with to enhance funds and guaranteeing Kodak has a stable succession plan in place to proceed its progress.
Although the corporate is nicely over 100 years previous, he stated he likes to deal with Kodak as a startup, the place all the debt is paid off, the model is well-loved and solely Kodak itself might, at this level, “screw it up.”
“We do not have to be a $5 billion or $20 billion or $80 billion firm,” Continenza stated. “We’re a billion-dollar international firm, however one factor we have now going for us is our model recognition. And make no mistake, across the globe, it’s endeared and liked, and it will proceed to be.”
