December 23, 2025 — Lionsgate Studios Corp stock is having a loud day in the market. Shares of Lionsgate Studios Corp (NYSE: LION) traded around $9.06 Tuesday, up roughly 8%–9%, after touching an intraday high near $9.23 (and a low around $8.54).
That price action matters because LION has been flirting with (and now pushing beyond) its prior 52-week high around $9.14—a technical milestone that tends to attract momentum traders and forces skeptics to revisit the “this is just a sleepy studio stock” thesis. [1]
Below is what’s new as of Dec. 23, 2025, plus the most relevant forecasts and analyses shaping sentiment around Lionsgate Studios stock.
Why Lionsgate Studios (LION) stock is moving today
Two themes are dominating the conversation around today’s surge:
- Wall Street price targets are rising
TipRanks’ newswire summary of today’s move points to renewed investor enthusiasm around Lionsgate’s strategic direction and content library, noting Morgan Stanley lifted its price target from $8 to $10 and Benchmark raised its target to $11. [2] - The company’s “library + distribution + ad-supported streaming” strategy is getting more tangible
This isn’t just about a single weekend box office print; it’s about a studio increasingly monetizing its catalog across traditional licensing, streaming windows, and FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) channels—where ad tech and sales execution can move revenue faster than film release schedules.
Market commentary today also highlighted the stock printing a fresh 52-week high around $9.15 and pegged market capitalization near $2.4B. [3]
The key near-term catalyst investors keep circling: FAST advertising expands
One of the most concrete late-December developments (and arguably a sentiment accelerant for LION) is Lionsgate’s push to professionalize and scale its FAST advertising stack.
Lionsgate selects FreeWheel as exclusive ad-serving partner for U.S. FAST channels (Dec. 18, 2025)
On December 18, 2025, FreeWheel announced it is now the exclusive ad-serving partner across Lionsgate’s portfolio of nearly 30 U.S. FAST channels, enabling media buyers to access inventory via the FreeWheel SSP through direct or programmatic buys. [4]
Industry trade outlet AdExchanger framed the move as Lionsgate stepping deeper into ad tech infrastructure to manage and sell the growing ad inventory coming from its expanding FAST channel lineup. [5]
Why this matters for LION stock: FAST is one of the few places in media where audience fragmentation can be monetized quickly—and where a large library (Lionsgate’s core asset) can be re-packaged into always-on programming without waiting for theatrical windows.
Also worth noting: Reuters ran a brief on the FreeWheel/Lionsgate partnership. [6]
Content performance still matters: “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” shows global reach
Even in a world of streaming bundles and ad tech pipes, theatrical and global distribution still feed the machine—especially for a studio brand.
Lionsgate’s latest entry in the franchise, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” has generated meaningful worldwide box office receipts. Box Office Mojo lists total grosses at roughly $61.1M domestic, $154.0M international, and about $215.1M worldwide. [7]
That kind of global performance matters for studios because it can influence downstream economics (premium VOD, licensing deals, and the perceived value of sequel-worthy IP).
Fundamentals check: what Lionsgate told investors in the latest earnings release
The most recent official financial update in the public record is Lionsgate’s second quarter fiscal 2026 results (reported Nov. 6, 2025). Highlights from the company’s release included: $475M in revenue, a net loss from continuing operations attributable to shareholders of $112M, and Adjusted OIBDA of $14.1M. [8]
Two datapoints that bulls consistently cite:
- Trailing 12-month library revenue grew 13% to a record $1.0B
- Backlog grew 31% sequentially to nearly $1.6B [9]
Translation: Lionsgate’s library isn’t just an archival asset—it’s the engine that can keep producing revenue even when the box office calendar is lumpy.
Analyst forecasts: price targets, earnings date, and what the Street is modeling
Price targets (what analysts are implying)
Today’s trading is occurring against a backdrop of improving sell-side tone:
- Morgan Stanley: target lifted to $10 (per TipRanks newswire)
- Benchmark: target raised to $11 (per TipRanks newswire) [10]
Broader “consensus” trackers cluster around the high single digits / low double digits. For example, StockAnalysis recently listed market cap/EV updates consistent with today’s move and shows LION’s market cap rising into the mid‑$2B range. [11]
Next earnings watch: early February 2026
Multiple earnings calendars converge on early February 2026 for the next report:
- TipRanks lists Feb. 5, 2026 (after close) and shows a consensus EPS forecast around -$0.02 for fiscal Q3 2026. [12]
- Investing.com also lists Feb. 5, 2026 for the next earnings report date. [13]
Investors tend to treat those dates as “directionally useful” until the company officially confirms timing, but the key point is that the next major fundamentals checkpoint is close enough to matter for positioning.
The M&A “optionality” narrative is back (and it’s not subtle)
A major ingredient in LION’s re-rating thesis is strategic optionality: studios with valuable libraries and production engines can become targets, partners, or consolidators.
TheWrap reported recently that Lionsgate Studios shares have climbed sharply over the last six months and highlighted ongoing interest from notable investors, including activist fund Anson Funds (and referenced stakes held by other large investors). [14]
This builds on earlier reporting that Lions Gate Entertainment shareholders approved the strategic move to split the studio business from Starz (the separation that helped create the standalone structure investors now track through LION). [15]
And the separation itself was completed in May 2025, with the company announcing that shares of Lionsgate Studios would begin trading on the NYSE under the ticker LION. [16]
None of this guarantees a deal—Hollywood deal chatter is a perpetual motion machine—but it does help explain why the market may be assigning LION a valuation “floor” above what near-term earnings alone might justify.
A valuation reality check: not everyone thinks the rally is “free money”
Not all analysis reads the surge as purely fundamental.
Simply Wall St, in a Dec. 20 analysis, noted the stock’s strong recent run and presented multiple valuation lenses—one suggesting modest upside around a narrative fair value near the high-$8s, while also noting a DCF-based view that could imply lower fair value depending on assumptions. [17]
This kind of split is common for media businesses: valuations can swing hard depending on how aggressively you model library monetization, margins, and leverage over a multi-year horizon.
Corporate developments beyond Wall Street: Newark studio project moves forward
Lionsgate’s longer-term production footprint is also expanding. A New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) press release dated Dec. 11, 2025 announced that construction began on Lionsgate Newark, described as a $125 million-plus, 12-acre film and television production facility planned to open in 2027, with Lionsgate as long-term anchor tenant and naming-rights partner. [18]
This type of infrastructure investment won’t move quarterly EPS overnight, but it can matter for long-term production capacity, regional incentives, and cost/logistics flexibility.
Insider activity: what investors noticed in the filings
One additional headline investors flagged this week: Lionsgate Studios’ COO Brian Goldsmith reported a 25,000-share transaction dated Dec. 18, 2025, described in the filing context as year-end tax planning (with trades around the mid‑$8.50s). [19]
Insider selling is not automatically bearish—especially when the filing itself frames the purpose as tax-related—but in a fast-moving stock, traders often scan filings for any signal that insiders view the rally as overextended.
What to watch next for Lionsgate Studios Corp stock
Here are the next catalysts that could matter most for LION stock after today’s breakout:
- Earnings in early February 2026: Investors will be looking for continued library strength and clearer profitability trajectory. [20]
- FAST monetization progress: Watch for any follow-up metrics around FAST channel revenue, sell-through, and advertiser adoption as the FreeWheel integration ramps. [21]
- The 2026 distribution/streaming window strategy: Lionsgate previously announced a multi-year arrangement with Amazon’s Prime Video tied to streaming Lionsgate’s slate after Starz, underscoring how the studio is thinking about monetization across windows. [22]
- Deal chatter vs. deal reality: The stock can move on speculation alone, but sustained re-rating typically requires either better fundamentals, explicit strategic steps, or both. [23]
- Volatility after a technical breakout: When a stock pushes through a widely watched 52-week high area, both momentum buying and profit-taking can intensify—often in the same week. [24]
Bottom line on Dec. 23, 2025
Lionsgate Studios Corp stock (LION) is rallying sharply today as the market digests a combination of rising analyst targets, greater confidence in library monetization, and a more visible path to ad-supported streaming revenue via the FreeWheel partnership. [25]
The bullish story is coherent: a major content library plus expanding distribution pipes (including FAST) can produce recurring revenue that looks more “media-tech-like” than “hit-driven studio-like.” The bearish pushback is also coherent: the company is still working through losses and leverage, and valuation depends heavily on multi-year execution. [26]
References
1. investors.lionsgate.com, 2. www.tipranks.com, 3. www.investing.com, 4. www.freewheel.com, 5. www.adexchanger.com, 6. www.sahmcapital.com, 7. www.boxofficemojo.com, 8. investors.lionsgate.com, 9. investors.lionsgate.com, 10. www.tipranks.com, 11. stockanalysis.com, 12. www.tipranks.com, 13. www.investing.com, 14. www.thewrap.com, 15. www.reuters.com, 16. investors.lionsgate.com, 17. simplywall.st, 18. www.njpac.org, 19. www.stocktitan.net, 20. www.tipranks.com, 21. www.freewheel.com, 22. www.theverge.com, 23. www.thewrap.com, 24. investors.lionsgate.com, 25. www.tipranks.com, 26. investors.lionsgate.com
