Hollywood movies in Cineplex multiplexes vary in performance quarter to quarter, which has left the exhibition giant continuing to invest in emerging businesses to diversify for the future.

“We set the table, but we don’t serve the steak,” Ellis Jacob, president and CEO of Cineplex, told Playback Daily of movies in his theatres.

During the latest second quarter financial period, earnings fell as Captain America: The Winter Soldier and X-Men: Days of Future Past performed in theatres, but titles like A Million Ways to Die in the West and Edge of Tomorrow did not meet box office expectations.

Cineplex posted a second-quarter profit down 18.7% to $23.2 million, compared to year-earlier earnings of $28.5 million, as box office sales fell 4.2%.

Overall revenues rose 7.2% to $323.5 million, due mostly to newly purchased Empire Theatre locations.

Cineplex also had fewer family films than the same period of 2013, and was undercut by Fast and Furious 7 being pushed to an April 2015 release after the death of lead Paul Walker in November 2013.

“We’ve diversified into other businesses to soften the blow of quarters like this,” Jacob said of his traditional bricks-and-mortar, products-driven business that depends on Hollywood blockbuster hits for success.

The new businesses include food services, gaming, alternative programming like Front Row Centre Events, Cineplex Media, Cineplex Digital Solutions, Cineplex Digital Networks, and the online sale of home entertainment content through CineplexStore.com and apps.

Jacob said Cineplex was investing in its new businesses, which provides a drag on earnings in the near term.

But the investments aim to drive consistent earnings growth down the road.

“We’re well positioned. If this happened three years from now,  when all the other businesses are at a higher growth level, the impact [of a lack of blockbuster hits] would be smaller,” Jacob argued.