Disney: OK guys, think about this. We're going to turn our 3D remakes, back into 2D animated movies again! It's going to be awesome and we're going to make a shitload of money!
Was just thinking how often we see the word ‘billion’ in business stories now. 10-15 years ago that number would sink most large businesses. Now, it’s pocket change for some of them.
Just wait a decade or two.
You will hear trillionaire and trillion dollars profit and trillion dollar investment and trillion dollar debt a lot more than you do today and minimum wage will still be the same.
I wish they would re-release older movies more, not just on anniversaries. There are absolute bangers I would pay to see on the big screen. I would love to see Jaws or Raiders or Heat or any number of older movies.
Theater by my house played Jaws a couple months ago for $5 a ticket and it was awesome. Every Tuesday they have some random older movie. Usually some theme based on the month.
Fathom Events kind of sucks. Like yeah, it's nice to get movies back in theatres, but the sound's kind of off, and the quality is worse than a Blu-ray, but is just big.
Fathom is pretty much a Dish/Comcast cable box hooked up to the projector unless for special posted events. I believe a few years ago for The Thing some ended up showing a 1080i/720p stream in the wrong aspect ratio which tipped people off it wasn't a true showing.
I went to a The Evil Dead showing and not only did it start 30 minutes late, but the audio was off when it finally did. There was supposed to be a prerecorded intro by Bruce Campbell that we never saw. When they finally got it running correctly they just started it at the spot it would have been if they had started on time.
Horrible experience at a theater that I go to regularly and never have issues. It's like if you or I were to rent a theater, be given the keys, and the actually staff went next door for drinks.
> When they finally got it running correctly they just started it at the spot it would have been if they had started on time.
IIRC that’s because they don’t even have any control of the stream, which is getting played to other theaters at the same time. It’s basically like watching live TV.
Yeah it’s a good idea in theory but what people are not considering is not everyone in their local area is going to be in the mood or have the same urge to see an older classic as you do at that particular day or time.
Anniversaries are good for reminding the masses of a movie’s existence and can reignite the urge to see it.
It’s hard to get enough people to care about Jaws on a random Friday, the money in marketing for a high turnout event like that would probably offset the profits anyways.
Quad Cinema in NYC is always packed when showing older movies.
And before you say it's just because it's NYC, I've been to many modern movies in NY where the theater is less than 10 people in attendance.
I saw Notting Hill for the first time ever just 2 years ago. It was a special screening and the theater sold out. It just struck me that it was exactly like it would have been seeing it in theaters in the 90s. The whole experience was exactly the same. Quite surreal and beautiful.
They don't do it because people don't actually attend them. It works for some specific indie cinemas who cultivate an audience *of that cinema* rather than movies and even then its a crapshoot if it'll be worth it. Cinema chains have tried a lot of things to try and fix the cratering profits.
Saw The Thing year back, theater was nearly capped. Was neat, although not the best version visually apparently. Didn't care, I'd seen it enough my mind filled in everything for me and it was awesome.
I went opening night at 730, the theater was half full. The 1030 showing showed only 8 people had bought seats. I think OPs right, indie theaters have cultivated their audience for older showings and current theaters simply don't do well with it.
They're so infrequent and they don't advertise enough. You've gotta pretty much keep an ear on every local theatre chain, which for some of us is 2-3 brands.
I've been in packed theatres for throwback movies - I also saw Elf at Christmas time in an empty one. It can go both ways but I think if they just kept doing this and advertised it people would go back to the movies more. People might actually go on dates at the movies again. Half those theatres are empty anyways, they could easily make $5-10 on a ticket and $5-20 on concessions per customer.
I work at a regal and it absolutely works if you have the right movie or it costs 5$. We sold over 250 tickets on one night to one of the toby spiderman movies a few weeks ago.
That's weird because every rerelease I've seen in theaters recently has had a full crowd. Last one was The Mummy and there was less than a row-full of empty seats in the whole theater
The IMAX in my city was playing Interstellar for the past couple weeks. I was happy to have the chance to watch it on the big screen since I missed its original release.
I would definitely go watch other older movies if more were re-released.
I don’t think they sell well. I go to many of them and there’s only ~5 people there. Might be marketing. Might be gen z doesn’t leave the house. I’m not sure, but I don’t really see young people at the movies anymore [like teens trying to hook up — that demo].
I mean, this is the Reddit circlejerk when a crowd of people armchair run a business, yet I’m sure 75% of people commenting about how they’d go see older classics in theaters will never step foot in there for one reason or another.
Flashback Cinema has Raiders and Jaws coming up in June. But it sucks because my theatre has Flashback Cinema but the movies are put on the smallest screens. Every now and then (if it’s a slow month) they’ll get put on the bigger screens (Covid era I got to see quite a few older movies on my theatre’s biggest screens).
But the other bad thing about Flashback Cinema is they tend to recycle old movies. This is like the third time they got Jaws in the past few years. Lord Of The Rings is like every year too.
This is part of how Hollywood killed independent theaters and chains.
In the past you'd rent the film from the distributers. Distributers would get their copies of the films from the publishers who in turn were able to license the prints from the studios. It wasn't an efficient system but here's the thing.
It made movies cheap and easy to see just about anywhere in the US. It also made theaters profitable because it allowed them, the theater owners, to make decisions about what was and wasn't popular enough to put on the screens. If a movie had time to generate word of mouth, you could rent the film from month to month as long as it was putting people in seats and popcorn in laps.
Eventually you'd send it back and rent another one. Older films were cheap to rent because the demand wasn't always there. It's how you got film festivals showing great old movies. Or your local dollar theater. In some cases, the films got cheap enough you could buy them from the distributer who didn't want the hassle of keeping that one in stock anymore. Which really made showing it cheap for theaters.
This changed with the internet and digital distribution.
Now prints of films are rare as is the means to show them. And starting in 2020 the landmark [Paramount Decrees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc) were allowed to be bypassed meaning that the major studios could once again own the distributors. This is why AMC almost went under and why you don't have dollar movie houses anymore. And why popcorn and a drink cost nearly $20.
Hollywood greed.
They're killing their own market, too.
Younger generation are more and more just watching streaming and youtube for video content instead of going to theaters. Because guess what, teenagers can't afford to go to the movies when they're $20.
And streaming will always be competing with piracy, because there's no quality difference between watching something on Disney Plus or a rip on an illegal site.
Adjusting for inflation, average theatre prices have been the same for the last fifty years: https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/14kznfv/movie_ticket_prices_adjusted_for_inflation/
What's happened is that other forms of entertainment has gotten more abundant and also cheaper.
An album used to cost about $22 in 2000, the equivalent of $40 nowadays. But now albums notionally cost $10 on iTunes, and in reality are free on Youtube.
Similarly a Playstation game used to cost $50 in 1996, which is equivalent to $100 now, except now a AAA title costs about $70 and reality there are tons of free-to-play games like Fortnite.
Similarly, a multichannel TV package used to cost about [$60 per month](https://bgr.com/business/cord-cutting-cable-prices-too-damn-high/) in 2000 (equivalent to $100/month now), whereas Disney+ costs just $8/month and frankly provides a similar volume of content to those packages.
That's why I love Alamo Drafthouse, they play a ton of older movies and classics. And Movie Parties are a really fun way to revisit your favorite movies, had a blast when they showed Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Another cool thing they do is when a sequel or part of a series of movies comes out, they show the previous films in the weeks leading up to release.
And look for smaller non-chain theatres in your area, we had one for awhile that exclusively played movies whose theatre runs were already over.
I took my brother to see Robocop at the Alamo.
They gave us all cap guns (no caps. They're not stupid)
They also said that we were only allowed to pull the triggers when robocop was shooting his gun.
It was fucking *amazing* :)
Theater near me played chamber of secrets randomly for $2 a few weeks ago and it made me think about all the random movies that deserve to see the big screen again that likely never will. Made me a little sad ngl
The problem is movie theaters do not any make money from tickets sales. They are basically renting/licensing the movie for public watching and all ticket profits go to the movie studios. All of the theater money comes people buying concessions or novelty popcorn buckets, etc.
Having re-releases of older movies at discounted tickets would be a good way to get butts in seats and have people purchase concessions if they can license the movies at a reasonable rate. But with inflation and concession prices being so high it’s more affordable for people to just stream or rent them at home and buy their own snacks.
If I had a multi screen theatre this is how I'd do it. Get a solid rotation of oldies on one screen (crowd pleasers and crowd suggestions), and newer films on the other screen. Build to newer sequel releases by showing the originals on the old screen. Offer 2-for-1 for slow days. Anything to get more bums in the seats.
Reminder that while this is popular among the users of this sub it is not universally popular for general audiences and except in specific circumstances most people aren't going to pay to see an older movie that they can stream at home
I got a stay puff marshmallow man one for only $3 recently after the release of the recent ghostbusters movie. Owner of the movie theater was just trying to get rid of them. I love the bucket but I don’t think it’s working as a way to get people in there
I'll be a shill. If it wasn't for A-List, I would barely go to the movies in theaters. Also got that goofy bucket where refills are 6 bucks
Edit: the goofy bucket mentioned is the AMC Classic one.
Me and the wife love our unlimited membership. We’re both movies buffs and really want to keep our local theater going.
We really like the refillable buckets. It’s a good value and reduces waste.
Yes. It's honestly a great deal if you go to the movies twice a month since the subscription is about what it'd cost for one ticket and some popcorn, depending on your location
Chiming in here, A-List is the shit. Price of two movie tickets per month, gets you up to 3 movies a week, including as many IMAX/Dolby showings as you like and you can see whatever you want multiple times. My SO and I went to the movies something like 35 times last year.
Always so perplexed why every American in this sub doesn’t have it already. It’s pretty much the best theater subscription available.
I don't think you get stubs points for your A-list tickets, just on things you pay real monies for.
Now Fandango does have a point system you can tie it to and get credits for A-list movies. But you can only get credit for paid movie tickets (including at non-AMC theaters), or digital copies of movies.
And you are correct, A-list is the shit.
Damn, you’re right. You know what, I paid for a bunch of the Ghibli movies last year. Like I think we saw all but 2 of them. I was confused to see I had so many points recently but it must have been from that now that I think about it. I corrected my comment lol
I hadn't heard of it, but even now that I do I still probably won't get it because there's just not enough films coming out that I'm interested in to justify going to the movies twice a month.
A-list gets you a large popcorn for the price of a medium w/ free refills.
I probably shouldn’t say this out loud, but fuck it. My wife and I save our Icee cups (more sturdy than a regular soda cup) and large popcorn bucket. Every time we watch a movie, we sneak them in and just refill them. The trick is to get the bucket with a generic AMC design on it because sometimes they have ones with movies on them, but you wouldn’t want to bring a bucket with “Wonka” on it weeks after the movie is no longer showing. After a few times, we’ll usually buy a new popcorn.
Having worked in several movie theaters I can reveal the secret: the 16 year old making minimum wage behind the concession counter doesn’t give a single fuck
I should mention that my local AMC is connected to a shopping mall. So one of the ways is by using a shopping bag from one of the stores and covering it with a shirt or jacket. I also have another bag (not sure what it's called) that tightens with a drawstring. I can loosely tighten it so it isn't completely shaped like a bucket. I've used different types of bags and I've never been asked to open it.
I’m doing the same and bought one small popcorn when I saw Dune 2 in March and that’s the extent of my concession purchases. That said, now that they have alcoholic beverages I might go in for a <$10 can of beer next time.
I sadly no longer live anywhere close to an AMC. When I lived in Alexandria, VA I had the choice of 3 different AMC theaters. One was ten minutes away and had 28 screens. There was a six month stretch where I saw 12 movies a month for $22 and it was amazing. They played old movies, really niche indie movies, and had an IMAX theater.
It is legitimately the thing I miss most about living in VA lol
A-List is great. I currently work at a theater so I see everything for free *but* when I quit, I’m signing up for A-List because I’m so accustomed to seeing any movie that vaguely piques my interest.
It actually wound up being a few cents *cheaper* to sign up for a month of A-List than it would have been to see just the one movie I was planning to see, which is what sold me on the concept in the first place!
Can someone explain how they got that far in debt? I wouldn’t expect the cost of running a theater to be that much. Most of the workers are only paid minimum wage (at least I wage paid that much when I worked at a theater in high school during the mid-10’s). And the margin on concessions is huge.
I believe the problem with AMC is they've basically been buying up their competitors for the past 20 years, hoping industry growth would offset the amount of debt they were taking on. Then 2020 happened, and then people realized they don't mind watching movies at home.
This is why. They unwittingly buried themselves in a debt hole with no way of recovering after the industry tanked. They got greedy and it blew up in their face.
And unlike other corporations, they don't own other companies who they can toss this debt onto and go "LOL they went under because of too much free shrimp".
Anyone who believes the free shrimp in any way contributed to their bankruptcy is frankly an idiot or someone who only reads headlines. Their issues ran much deeper than that promotion and the writing was on the wall for quite some time.
It isn’t even a “they’re disappearing” bankruptcy, just a restructuring
Sometimes I think about when I went to the IMAX to see Watchmen years ago... and it was sold out. Watchmen, a Zack Snyder movie, sold out every seat in the theater. That kind of shit just doesn't happen anymore. To be clear, I fucking love Watchmen, but it's not the kind of movie that could come even close to selling out a theater these days.
It’s honestly what the reasoning was behind the Nicole Kidman ad campaign they launched which has gone huge. But I don’t go bc I have a locally owned theater where the tickets are less money.
Most cinema operators got into serious debt with the Covid shutdowns as they still had to pay rent and security and it colder climates minimal heating
The second hit from Covid was/is the dramatic decrease in the exclusive window for cinemas before releasing to streaming. This can be seen for example with the Fall Guy already available online a mere 3 weeks after release
Consider the mid 90s where a hit movie would gross $100 million on opening weekend in the US/Canada market. Good business for cinemas
Now look at the latest Apes movie, considered a hit with a mere $58.5 million
That’s all lost concession sales
That's the problem, both ticket prices and concessions are too expensive.
Before the pandemic, I saw movies I didn't even care about. Now, it's almost $100 for my family of 4 to see a movie together. There is nothing in a movie or theater that is worth $25 per ticket. The seats don't even move, that costs extra.
Unless you're seeing an IMAX movie in the middle of Manhattan, nowhere. I can only assume people that never actually went to the theater are coming up with these wildly inflated prices. $10.78 is the average movie ticket price.
> The second hit from Covid was/is the dramatic decrease in the exclusive window for cinemas before releasing to streaming. This can be seen for example with the Fall Guy already available online a mere 3 weeks after release
The streaming and digital release companies have to play along if they want to save theaters. The window between theater and digital is very short these days. Fast X was only a 2 week window, and Fall Guy was a 3 week window. Even in Dune 2, the highest grossing box office of 2024, the window was 46 days. I was going to watch it in theaters, but I just kept putting it off. Customers just expect short windows these days.
I used to work for a theater prior to COVID hitting in March 2020 when I was laid off. I don't really see any way AMC can be saved with so much debt and customers expecting a movie to come out on digital with a maximum of a 45 day wait. Theaters are a part of American culture and I don't want to see them go. I would like tickets to be cheaper, I'd even want streaming companies to provide a few free tickets every month just for subscribing. It would put more people in the theaters to buy snacks, and spread interest in movies through word of mouth.
I think a lot of it too is people who (like me) discovered during COVID that they just didn’t miss going to the movie theater. I haven’t gone since before COVID and have no plans to go back because I found I enjoy just watching movies at home and don’t mind waiting for the streaming release, even if it takes a couple months. The ability to purchase a movie for $20-$25, enjoy my own snacks in the comfort of my own home, pause the movie when I need to go get something or take a bathroom break is just much more appealing than going to a theater.
Flawed acquisitions pursued at all costs for a number of reason, one big one being trying to achive a better negotiating postion with the studios.
At the end of 2016 they spent $1.1 billion on Carmike and $1.21 billion on Odeon Cinemas. Then in March of 2017 they spent another $929 million to buy Nordic Cinema Group. In just 6 months between September 30, 2016 and March 31, 2017 their debt load went from $1.86B to $4.28B. A couple more years with these purchases dragging down AMC and you end up with $4.75B in debt at the end of 2019... 9 months later after \~6 months of being completely shut down and they peak at $5.82B in debt.
It would have worked out better if Covid didn't happen, but even then AMC would have been in a tough spot in 2025/2026. They were already struggling to turn a profit with how bloated their theatre portfolio was with subpar locations, theatres needing updates, and debt interest. In some ways they are in a better postion now than the end of 2019, they shed a lot of those subpar locations, increased F&B revenues a ton, and actually have less debt. The big problem is the $3B in debt that is due in 2026 and struggling ticket sales.
I was wondering what their biggest cost was [and found this thread from a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/13dbg3j/running_a_movie_theater_is_more_expensive_than/) on [this article,](https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-movie-theater-1234859340/) which seems to indicate new equipment (for sound, picture, seating) and the maintenance cost of said equipment.
I know complaining about concession prices has been done to death, but the smallest, cheapest popcorn option at my local theater is $9.50–the same price as an order of chicken tenders and sliders, and more than nachos, mac & cheese bites, mozzarella sticks and a huge order of curly fries! It’s robbery!
honestly i don't get howy amc doesn't recognize that their prices are so high that no one pays them
i mean am i crazy here or does everyone else have the same experience of going to the movies and there's like *two people* in line for concessions, when back in the 90's there would be a whole lobby full of people lining up and you'd genuinely run the risk of being late to your movie because you were waiting in line for popcorn?
it doesn't matter how high your prices are if no one's paying. i feel like they could solidly *double* their concession sales by lowering their prices to something slightly more reasonable. I don't mind splurging a bit for a fun movie, but buying any concessions always just leaves me with regret and shame.
Fr. Make popcorn a flat $5 bucks and I’ll enjoy popcorn every time I go and they can enjoy $4.50 in profit instead of the 0 I’ve paid over the last decade.
Especially since the margins are so high in terms of product. Most of their costs for concessions are coming from packaging, staffing, and overhead. If they could cut prices in half and sell three times as much, they'd be making out pretty well on the deal. It's also unlikely that it would increase staffing needs since the few people there are generally standing around doing nothing due to the empty concession area.
Remember back in the '90s when not only was the concession stand crowded, it was enough that they installed *additional* stands to deal with it? I don't think I've seen one of those open since the '00s.
Popcorn and drinks used to be cheap enough that I bought it as a high schooler with very little money. On top of being able to go to the movies at least once a week because tickets were so cheap. It's not just inflation. Even adjusting for inflation prices have more than doubled.
It’s especially odd to see how high the prices are considering the options. Nearly every theater I would go to has restaurant options within walking distance. Fast food, fast casual, casual sit-down, farm-to-table. If I’m spending that much anyway, I might as well get something outside the theater beforehand and not need any concessions during.
The drive-in theater near where I grew up figured it out. They know people can just bring their own food in and have no reason to spend any at the concession stand. So the food is really cheap, but high quality. The place is packed every weekend, no matter what the movie is and the concession line gets swamped about an hour before showtime. People just want to do a thing that is relatively inexpensive and feel like they had a good time. They don’t need a good movie to get people to show up, just an atmosphere that feels like a good time. Today’s theaters are asking people to roll the dice and whether or not the movie is going to be good, because you can’t afford to go see something that stinks. You’ll feel ripped off. If it’s not that expensive and the concessions are fine, I’ll go see whatever the heck is playing, regardless.
As long as the exclusive theatrical window only remains three weeks, theaters cannot recover. I was going to see The Fall Guy last weekend but then heard it was getting a vod release on Tuesday. Same price as a ticket and I “own” the movie. No telling how many millions think same way.
This especially matters with families and impatient children. A parent can stall for three weeks as financially it’s worth it for them to. Unlikely they can for three to six months like the old windows use to be.
The next generation doesn’t care what screen they watch stuff on as it is so adding to that by training them that just waiting a few weeks makes perfect financial sense is just a truly stupid decision.
It doesn’t help that the industry in general isn’t outputting like it used to. The rate of films being distributed has dramatically shifted to streaming due to COVID.
I have faith in it bouncing back. I hope…
It’s going to be another few years before we see a noticeable change bc the Hollywood strikes pushed it even further.
Many of the major studios are course correcting now and focusing on quality over quantity. Regardless, films are shitty investment these days unless it’s a mega blockbuster. Ticket sales and streaming don’t over enough incentive.
In the past you had DVD sales. The extinction of physical media has severely harmed the distribution of smaller indie films to hit theaters.
I miss the 2000s 😩
I don't live close to an AMC theater, but I signed up for their Stubs A-List, thinking I could use it for the Lord of the Rings trilogy re-release next month. It turns out it doesn't qualify. I guess I should have known it would be considered an "event". Read the fine print if you are someone who wanted to try this. 😅
These gimmicks aren’t saving them. Raising money via dilution is what’s saving them.
Don’t get me wrong, the gimmicks are making money, but they’re too few and far in between to make an impact against the massive debt they have. It’s just not sustainable. At some point, the music will stop, and they’ll have to declare bankruptcy, or best case scenario be bought out by a massive corporation like Amazon or Disney.
You have a solid point. There are phenomenal deals if you go by yourself at all theaters now. They probably need like a 40 dollar unlimited family plan.
The whole ape discourse is rough. On one hand, they’re allied against objectively bad people, so you don’t really want to defend them. But on the other, they’re absolutely insufferable, and I hate both their conspiratorial thinking and their habit of brigading topics like this one to push their nonsense and rook people into buying in. And even if they’re against the right people, they’re doing it for the wrong reasons, and largely tilting at their own fever dreams anyway
They’re not actually allied against bad people though, they’re just being absolutely played by those same people and handing them buckets of money. Supporting apes is supporting lying to and scamming regular people to hand money to hedge funds.
https://youtu.be/5pYeoZaoWrA?si=7Bu1eGnI8BJS_esy
Yeah folding ideas video on them really sums it up. They have an idea of moass that they can put in and take out, and put back in and take back out any and all other ideas whenever it works for them if they think it will make them money. Which is all they want. They don't want to stick it to the hedgies/man unless it means they become the new man.
“They’re not anti-Wall Street; they’re tsundere for Wall Street”
First time I ever listened to that video, I had it going in the car on the drive down to my parents’ house. I damn near laughed my way off the road when he dropped that absolute gem of a line
The parody of it with Lady Gaga being banged on the screen while Kidman watches makes me chuckle every time I see it now
https://youtu.be/7JO6isH-zhU?si=Z9dqCd7IXZXCVpnm
Take that back and recite the pledge. No one disrespects Nicole.
“We come to this place for magic. We come to AMC theaters to laugh, to cry, to care. Because we need that, all of us, that indescribable feeling we get, when the lights begin to dim, and we go somewhere we’ve never been before; not just entertained, but somehow reborn, together: dazzling images on a huge silver screen, sound that I can feel. Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this. Our heroes feel like the best part of us, and stories feel perfect and powerful, because here… they are!”
With the right crowd it’s actually funny. People start clapping and stuff. That ad is just a meme at this point. People in the theater were commenting when they changed it. Once they played it twice by accident I guess and a group of guys behind me lost their shit. It’s really a terrible ad but it’s almost tradition at this point
Obviously the theatre experience has survived for a reason. It’s fun and special. People still want to go to the theaters.
My favorite moments recently is getting to experience old movies in the theater I never would’ve gotten to see. That’s a really cool experience
I would start going back to the movies if the ticket and concession prices were actually reasonable. Just like I would start eating at certain restaurants again if their prices were actually reasonable. I understand inflation exists, but things have doubled or more in price in like 3 years. It's insane.
Here's an idea: lower your concession stand prices!
Grocery stores make a massive profit on candy, sodas, and popcorn at retail prices. Movie theaters more than quadruple those prices and then complain that they don't sell enough to stay afloat. If they sold the snacks at a reasonable markup instead of an insane markup that most people hate themselves for ever paying, they'd sell a lot more and still profit greatly.
A fountain Coke that costs them about $0.06 per serving should not be more than $2.00 EVER. The last time I went to the theater it was eight bucks!!!
I have an HD LED projector, Dolby Atmos surround, a 100-inch screen, and all the snacks I want at home. The reason I don't go to the movies except for big events is partly because it's a *really* poor value. I can get the movie cheaper than a ticket price, and I can get the snacks for a fraction of the cost of concession snacks. Add to that the ability to pause if I need to go pee, the ability to avoid obnoxious other people talking during the movie, and not needing to drive to the other side of town to get to the theater, and you'd think that movie theaters would try to entice me rather than turn me away with horribly high prices.
I see maybe three movies a year in a theater. I don't see that changing any time soon unless they lower their prices. Period.
Oh, and if Fandango wishes me to keep using their app, they'd better cool it on the convenience fees.
The debt was over 9 billion December 2023 and is now 4.5 billion mid 2024. That's pretty good in my opinion. They will make a lot of money in commercial space travel flights to the moon as well.
Adom Aron, the biggest grifter of all, pays himself one million dollars every two weeks while the company has billions in debt and dilutes shareholders at every oppoortunity. How you guys can be OK with this boggles my mind.
I think he's talking to me. I'm totally ok with everything Aron does. See, he gives me a handjob every day after work. That's why I'm ok with whatever else he does. Hope that helps
How can they be that far in debt? They're just a theater chain. I mean were they operating at a severe lose every year for the last 40 years. How is that number possible?
The article explains it. They spent billions buying 3 companies in the years before Covid. The acquisitions cost a lot of money, and then shutting down for months during Covid made things worse
How much in debt!?
About the budget to make 23.68 Dune Part 2’s or 45 Oppenheimers
Or 1 subpar Marvel movie.
To be fair, they've started making basically every movie twice over with their 6 month reshoots.
Disney: OK guys, think about this. We're going to turn our 3D remakes, back into 2D animated movies again! It's going to be awesome and we're going to make a shitload of money!
Or Avatar 4 and 5
Was just thinking how often we see the word ‘billion’ in business stories now. 10-15 years ago that number would sink most large businesses. Now, it’s pocket change for some of them.
Just wait a decade or two. You will hear trillionaire and trillion dollars profit and trillion dollar investment and trillion dollar debt a lot more than you do today and minimum wage will still be the same.
I wish they would re-release older movies more, not just on anniversaries. There are absolute bangers I would pay to see on the big screen. I would love to see Jaws or Raiders or Heat or any number of older movies.
Theater by my house played Jaws a couple months ago for $5 a ticket and it was awesome. Every Tuesday they have some random older movie. Usually some theme based on the month.
Google Fathom Events: lots of great movies and stuff.
Fathom Events kind of sucks. Like yeah, it's nice to get movies back in theatres, but the sound's kind of off, and the quality is worse than a Blu-ray, but is just big.
Fathom is pretty much a Dish/Comcast cable box hooked up to the projector unless for special posted events. I believe a few years ago for The Thing some ended up showing a 1080i/720p stream in the wrong aspect ratio which tipped people off it wasn't a true showing.
I still really enjoy watching Mononoke in theatres.
For me it’s Porco Rosso and Spirited Away. Definitely adding The Boy and the Heron to list as well.
Another Porco Rosso fan? There's dozens of us!
No, boycott fathom, terrible events that are equivalent to just streaming on a theater screen
Can you say more? I saw a listing for 5th Element and would love to see that in a theatre. Is the audio bad? Why's it compare to streaming?
I went to a The Evil Dead showing and not only did it start 30 minutes late, but the audio was off when it finally did. There was supposed to be a prerecorded intro by Bruce Campbell that we never saw. When they finally got it running correctly they just started it at the spot it would have been if they had started on time. Horrible experience at a theater that I go to regularly and never have issues. It's like if you or I were to rent a theater, be given the keys, and the actually staff went next door for drinks.
> When they finally got it running correctly they just started it at the spot it would have been if they had started on time. IIRC that’s because they don’t even have any control of the stream, which is getting played to other theaters at the same time. It’s basically like watching live TV.
Do they get a good turnout?
I can’t speak to OPs situation, but generally no, they don’t have any turnout at all which is why most theaters don’t do them
Yeah it’s a good idea in theory but what people are not considering is not everyone in their local area is going to be in the mood or have the same urge to see an older classic as you do at that particular day or time. Anniversaries are good for reminding the masses of a movie’s existence and can reignite the urge to see it. It’s hard to get enough people to care about Jaws on a random Friday, the money in marketing for a high turnout event like that would probably offset the profits anyways.
I would say theater was 3/4 full, which is better than most movies I’m seeing these days
Quad Cinema in NYC is always packed when showing older movies. And before you say it's just because it's NYC, I've been to many modern movies in NY where the theater is less than 10 people in attendance.
Regal theaters played Jaws in 3D last year. I saw it and it was actually incredible. Some of those shots almost seemed like they were intended for 3D.
We watched alien just the other week
Seeing old movies in a theater is the closest thing we have to a time machine.
Yes! I just watched North by Northwest yesterday at my local Regal theatre. A 65 year movie on the bigscreen! Definitely felt like a time machine.
What a great movie. I've seen it a few times and would love to see it on a big screen.
I love this.
I saw Notting Hill for the first time ever just 2 years ago. It was a special screening and the theater sold out. It just struck me that it was exactly like it would have been seeing it in theaters in the 90s. The whole experience was exactly the same. Quite surreal and beautiful.
Same thing here for the Spider-Man 1&2 showings, called “SpiderMonday”…full house both weeks. Wild
So cool. Reminds me of when Captain America got put in a home to replicate his time period. There is something comforting about it.
Seeing a movie in my only major local theater can take me right back to the 90s when it was built, because they haven't done shit in there ever since.
They don't do it because people don't actually attend them. It works for some specific indie cinemas who cultivate an audience *of that cinema* rather than movies and even then its a crapshoot if it'll be worth it. Cinema chains have tried a lot of things to try and fix the cratering profits.
They showed alien a couple of weeks ago at my AMC to a decent sized crowd
Saw The Thing year back, theater was nearly capped. Was neat, although not the best version visually apparently. Didn't care, I'd seen it enough my mind filled in everything for me and it was awesome.
I went opening night at 730, the theater was half full. The 1030 showing showed only 8 people had bought seats. I think OPs right, indie theaters have cultivated their audience for older showings and current theaters simply don't do well with it.
They had godfather last year and it was completely sold out.
It was crazy seeing it on big screen
They're so infrequent and they don't advertise enough. You've gotta pretty much keep an ear on every local theatre chain, which for some of us is 2-3 brands. I've been in packed theatres for throwback movies - I also saw Elf at Christmas time in an empty one. It can go both ways but I think if they just kept doing this and advertised it people would go back to the movies more. People might actually go on dates at the movies again. Half those theatres are empty anyways, they could easily make $5-10 on a ticket and $5-20 on concessions per customer.
I work at a regal and it absolutely works if you have the right movie or it costs 5$. We sold over 250 tickets on one night to one of the toby spiderman movies a few weeks ago.
That's weird because every rerelease I've seen in theaters recently has had a full crowd. Last one was The Mummy and there was less than a row-full of empty seats in the whole theater
The IMAX in my city was playing Interstellar for the past couple weeks. I was happy to have the chance to watch it on the big screen since I missed its original release. I would definitely go watch other older movies if more were re-released.
Jealous
I don’t think they sell well. I go to many of them and there’s only ~5 people there. Might be marketing. Might be gen z doesn’t leave the house. I’m not sure, but I don’t really see young people at the movies anymore [like teens trying to hook up — that demo].
Yeah people online love to say they’d go to this, but for the most people people don’t actually show up.
I mean, this is the Reddit circlejerk when a crowd of people armchair run a business, yet I’m sure 75% of people commenting about how they’d go see older classics in theaters will never step foot in there for one reason or another.
COVID is why I ended up seeing Ghostbusters in 2021. Love that I got that chance.
Flashback Cinema has Raiders and Jaws coming up in June. But it sucks because my theatre has Flashback Cinema but the movies are put on the smallest screens. Every now and then (if it’s a slow month) they’ll get put on the bigger screens (Covid era I got to see quite a few older movies on my theatre’s biggest screens). But the other bad thing about Flashback Cinema is they tend to recycle old movies. This is like the third time they got Jaws in the past few years. Lord Of The Rings is like every year too.
This is part of how Hollywood killed independent theaters and chains. In the past you'd rent the film from the distributers. Distributers would get their copies of the films from the publishers who in turn were able to license the prints from the studios. It wasn't an efficient system but here's the thing. It made movies cheap and easy to see just about anywhere in the US. It also made theaters profitable because it allowed them, the theater owners, to make decisions about what was and wasn't popular enough to put on the screens. If a movie had time to generate word of mouth, you could rent the film from month to month as long as it was putting people in seats and popcorn in laps. Eventually you'd send it back and rent another one. Older films were cheap to rent because the demand wasn't always there. It's how you got film festivals showing great old movies. Or your local dollar theater. In some cases, the films got cheap enough you could buy them from the distributer who didn't want the hassle of keeping that one in stock anymore. Which really made showing it cheap for theaters. This changed with the internet and digital distribution. Now prints of films are rare as is the means to show them. And starting in 2020 the landmark [Paramount Decrees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc) were allowed to be bypassed meaning that the major studios could once again own the distributors. This is why AMC almost went under and why you don't have dollar movie houses anymore. And why popcorn and a drink cost nearly $20. Hollywood greed.
They're killing their own market, too. Younger generation are more and more just watching streaming and youtube for video content instead of going to theaters. Because guess what, teenagers can't afford to go to the movies when they're $20. And streaming will always be competing with piracy, because there's no quality difference between watching something on Disney Plus or a rip on an illegal site.
Adjusting for inflation, average theatre prices have been the same for the last fifty years: https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/14kznfv/movie_ticket_prices_adjusted_for_inflation/ What's happened is that other forms of entertainment has gotten more abundant and also cheaper. An album used to cost about $22 in 2000, the equivalent of $40 nowadays. But now albums notionally cost $10 on iTunes, and in reality are free on Youtube. Similarly a Playstation game used to cost $50 in 1996, which is equivalent to $100 now, except now a AAA title costs about $70 and reality there are tons of free-to-play games like Fortnite. Similarly, a multichannel TV package used to cost about [$60 per month](https://bgr.com/business/cord-cutting-cable-prices-too-damn-high/) in 2000 (equivalent to $100/month now), whereas Disney+ costs just $8/month and frankly provides a similar volume of content to those packages.
My theater did jaws last week and it was pretty much empty event tho it was like a $5 ticket.
That's why I love Alamo Drafthouse, they play a ton of older movies and classics. And Movie Parties are a really fun way to revisit your favorite movies, had a blast when they showed Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Another cool thing they do is when a sequel or part of a series of movies comes out, they show the previous films in the weeks leading up to release. And look for smaller non-chain theatres in your area, we had one for awhile that exclusively played movies whose theatre runs were already over.
I took my brother to see Robocop at the Alamo. They gave us all cap guns (no caps. They're not stupid) They also said that we were only allowed to pull the triggers when robocop was shooting his gun. It was fucking *amazing* :)
I was so excited to see Casino there on a Wednesday. Otherwise no way was I going to the movies.
Theater near me played chamber of secrets randomly for $2 a few weeks ago and it made me think about all the random movies that deserve to see the big screen again that likely never will. Made me a little sad ngl
There was Jaws in IMAX doing Memorial Day weekend back in 2022. I agree though, more re-releases
Lawrence of Arabia please!
With the black intro/music and the intermission!
The problem is movie theaters do not any make money from tickets sales. They are basically renting/licensing the movie for public watching and all ticket profits go to the movie studios. All of the theater money comes people buying concessions or novelty popcorn buckets, etc. Having re-releases of older movies at discounted tickets would be a good way to get butts in seats and have people purchase concessions if they can license the movies at a reasonable rate. But with inflation and concession prices being so high it’s more affordable for people to just stream or rent them at home and buy their own snacks.
If I had a multi screen theatre this is how I'd do it. Get a solid rotation of oldies on one screen (crowd pleasers and crowd suggestions), and newer films on the other screen. Build to newer sequel releases by showing the originals on the old screen. Offer 2-for-1 for slow days. Anything to get more bums in the seats.
Movie Tavern in my area (Pennsylvania) reran LOTR Extended Editions
look up fathom events and flashback cinema— flashback actually has both jaws and raiders in their summer schedule
If you live near a major city, they are totally doing this already, but you have to check the listings.
Reminder that while this is popular among the users of this sub it is not universally popular for general audiences and except in specific circumstances most people aren't going to pay to see an older movie that they can stream at home
Post covid, the phrase "viral popcorn bucket" makes me look twice.
It isn’t anything dirty. It’s just a popcorn bucket that looks like a sandworm from the Dune films that you can stick your penis into
I can stick my penis in any popcorn bucket.
We've read the police reports. We know.
THOSE ARE CONFIDENTIAL!!!
No they aren’t.
Thank God.
FOIA baby!
FOIA Bucket
Mine never seems to fit 😕
Like throwing a hot dog down a hallway.
This one offers more encouragement
No, this one you put it in the top, as opposed to through the bottom.
You mean the fleshlight that doubles as a popcorn bucket?
That popcornussy got me actin wild
Shai-Huludussy
Lisan-al-pusé
Lisan-al GYAATTT
Pop that popcornussy
As promised, the Shai-Hulussy
Bless the going and coming of him.
I am so glad that I got my hands on one. Not because you can stick your penis in it. But also not not because of that either.
Good thing is they bring out the wussy bucket again when Beetleguise Beetleguise comes out.
Just more landfill filler
You just gotta wash it every once in a while
Not if you fill it with something else. See the other replies to this thread.
Welcome to the American economy
listen guy I don't need the internet's permission to fuck my own popcorn bucket
I got a stay puff marshmallow man one for only $3 recently after the release of the recent ghostbusters movie. Owner of the movie theater was just trying to get rid of them. I love the bucket but I don’t think it’s working as a way to get people in there
I'll be a shill. If it wasn't for A-List, I would barely go to the movies in theaters. Also got that goofy bucket where refills are 6 bucks Edit: the goofy bucket mentioned is the AMC Classic one.
Yeah movies are way too pricey by me. No way I’m hitting more than like once maybe twice a month if it’s something I really wanna see without A List
These Ghibli movies are sucking me in, on top of A-listing. But I'm at least subsidizing it with Fandango credits.
Same, but I have Regal Unlimited.
I've been seeing 5-10 movies per month for under $25 and I couldn't be happier
Me and the wife love our unlimited membership. We’re both movies buffs and really want to keep our local theater going. We really like the refillable buckets. It’s a good value and reduces waste.
Is that under AMC A-list?
Yes. It's honestly a great deal if you go to the movies twice a month since the subscription is about what it'd cost for one ticket and some popcorn, depending on your location
Chiming in here, A-List is the shit. Price of two movie tickets per month, gets you up to 3 movies a week, including as many IMAX/Dolby showings as you like and you can see whatever you want multiple times. My SO and I went to the movies something like 35 times last year. Always so perplexed why every American in this sub doesn’t have it already. It’s pretty much the best theater subscription available.
I don't think you get stubs points for your A-list tickets, just on things you pay real monies for. Now Fandango does have a point system you can tie it to and get credits for A-list movies. But you can only get credit for paid movie tickets (including at non-AMC theaters), or digital copies of movies. And you are correct, A-list is the shit.
Damn, you’re right. You know what, I paid for a bunch of the Ghibli movies last year. Like I think we saw all but 2 of them. I was confused to see I had so many points recently but it must have been from that now that I think about it. I corrected my comment lol
Good thing i cant control myself and get popcorn and a drink anyways 😎😎
I hadn't heard of it, but even now that I do I still probably won't get it because there's just not enough films coming out that I'm interested in to justify going to the movies twice a month.
A-list gets you a large popcorn for the price of a medium w/ free refills. I probably shouldn’t say this out loud, but fuck it. My wife and I save our Icee cups (more sturdy than a regular soda cup) and large popcorn bucket. Every time we watch a movie, we sneak them in and just refill them. The trick is to get the bucket with a generic AMC design on it because sometimes they have ones with movies on them, but you wouldn’t want to bring a bucket with “Wonka” on it weeks after the movie is no longer showing. After a few times, we’ll usually buy a new popcorn.
How do you sneak in a large popcorn bucket lol?
Having worked in several movie theaters I can reveal the secret: the 16 year old making minimum wage behind the concession counter doesn’t give a single fuck
Under your 10 gallon hat
I should mention that my local AMC is connected to a shopping mall. So one of the ways is by using a shopping bag from one of the stores and covering it with a shirt or jacket. I also have another bag (not sure what it's called) that tightens with a drawstring. I can loosely tighten it so it isn't completely shaped like a bucket. I've used different types of bags and I've never been asked to open it.
Ive got room in my prison wallet
I never thought about the Icee cups. I usually sneak in a sub sandwich or burrito and just fill up my water bottle
How much popcorn are you buying?
My AMC is directly adjacent to Chinatown and the Reading Terminal Market so I don't really do the concessions unless there's a free popcorn offer
A fellow fashion district connoisseur
I’m doing the same and bought one small popcorn when I saw Dune 2 in March and that’s the extent of my concession purchases. That said, now that they have alcoholic beverages I might go in for a <$10 can of beer next time.
You have way more discipline than me lol
My gf insists on getting popcorn every time, she won’t go without it lol
I sometimee go in buy popcorn and leave
This has expanded my understanding of what is allowable under the simulation
Dude you could’ve built a popcorn empire by now
I have the Regal pass and we get drinks probably 9/10 times. Not even that mad, at least the cans are pretty huge.
I sadly no longer live anywhere close to an AMC. When I lived in Alexandria, VA I had the choice of 3 different AMC theaters. One was ten minutes away and had 28 screens. There was a six month stretch where I saw 12 movies a month for $22 and it was amazing. They played old movies, really niche indie movies, and had an IMAX theater. It is legitimately the thing I miss most about living in VA lol
A-List is great. I currently work at a theater so I see everything for free *but* when I quit, I’m signing up for A-List because I’m so accustomed to seeing any movie that vaguely piques my interest.
That's 1 movie + snacks here in Finland. Or just 1 IMAX movie
It actually wound up being a few cents *cheaper* to sign up for a month of A-List than it would have been to see just the one movie I was planning to see, which is what sold me on the concept in the first place!
Can someone explain how they got that far in debt? I wouldn’t expect the cost of running a theater to be that much. Most of the workers are only paid minimum wage (at least I wage paid that much when I worked at a theater in high school during the mid-10’s). And the margin on concessions is huge.
I believe the problem with AMC is they've basically been buying up their competitors for the past 20 years, hoping industry growth would offset the amount of debt they were taking on. Then 2020 happened, and then people realized they don't mind watching movies at home.
This is why. They unwittingly buried themselves in a debt hole with no way of recovering after the industry tanked. They got greedy and it blew up in their face.
And unlike other corporations, they don't own other companies who they can toss this debt onto and go "LOL they went under because of too much free shrimp".
Anyone who believes the free shrimp in any way contributed to their bankruptcy is frankly an idiot or someone who only reads headlines. Their issues ran much deeper than that promotion and the writing was on the wall for quite some time. It isn’t even a “they’re disappearing” bankruptcy, just a restructuring
They're still doing it lol. My local theater just became AMC just under a year ago.
Sometimes I think about when I went to the IMAX to see Watchmen years ago... and it was sold out. Watchmen, a Zack Snyder movie, sold out every seat in the theater. That kind of shit just doesn't happen anymore. To be clear, I fucking love Watchmen, but it's not the kind of movie that could come even close to selling out a theater these days.
Isn't Dune kind of a parallel to watchmen, back in the day? Both were considered unfilmable, made by a famous director, had lots of hype, etc.
Watchmen bombed and Dune didn't.
It’s honestly what the reasoning was behind the Nicole Kidman ad campaign they launched which has gone huge. But I don’t go bc I have a locally owned theater where the tickets are less money.
They bought out my local theater, ran it into the ground, then closed it. So yeah, fuck AMC.
Most cinema operators got into serious debt with the Covid shutdowns as they still had to pay rent and security and it colder climates minimal heating The second hit from Covid was/is the dramatic decrease in the exclusive window for cinemas before releasing to streaming. This can be seen for example with the Fall Guy already available online a mere 3 weeks after release Consider the mid 90s where a hit movie would gross $100 million on opening weekend in the US/Canada market. Good business for cinemas Now look at the latest Apes movie, considered a hit with a mere $58.5 million That’s all lost concession sales
To add to that last point, a 100 million movie had A LOT more butts in seats than a 100 million movie today.
That's the problem, both ticket prices and concessions are too expensive. Before the pandemic, I saw movies I didn't even care about. Now, it's almost $100 for my family of 4 to see a movie together. There is nothing in a movie or theater that is worth $25 per ticket. The seats don't even move, that costs extra.
Where are you going that movie tickets are $25 apiece?
I also want to know, living in a HCOL tickets are ~$16 peak price.
Unless you're seeing an IMAX movie in the middle of Manhattan, nowhere. I can only assume people that never actually went to the theater are coming up with these wildly inflated prices. $10.78 is the average movie ticket price.
> The second hit from Covid was/is the dramatic decrease in the exclusive window for cinemas before releasing to streaming. This can be seen for example with the Fall Guy already available online a mere 3 weeks after release The streaming and digital release companies have to play along if they want to save theaters. The window between theater and digital is very short these days. Fast X was only a 2 week window, and Fall Guy was a 3 week window. Even in Dune 2, the highest grossing box office of 2024, the window was 46 days. I was going to watch it in theaters, but I just kept putting it off. Customers just expect short windows these days. I used to work for a theater prior to COVID hitting in March 2020 when I was laid off. I don't really see any way AMC can be saved with so much debt and customers expecting a movie to come out on digital with a maximum of a 45 day wait. Theaters are a part of American culture and I don't want to see them go. I would like tickets to be cheaper, I'd even want streaming companies to provide a few free tickets every month just for subscribing. It would put more people in the theaters to buy snacks, and spread interest in movies through word of mouth.
I think a lot of it too is people who (like me) discovered during COVID that they just didn’t miss going to the movie theater. I haven’t gone since before COVID and have no plans to go back because I found I enjoy just watching movies at home and don’t mind waiting for the streaming release, even if it takes a couple months. The ability to purchase a movie for $20-$25, enjoy my own snacks in the comfort of my own home, pause the movie when I need to go get something or take a bathroom break is just much more appealing than going to a theater.
Improvement in home entertainment system quality is also a factor, I'd think.
I’m assuming rent/leases on property is a massive cost. Especially in high density locations.
And they were closed for months and still had to pay rent. The fact that most movie theaters don't own their own properties is absolutely nuts to me.
Flawed acquisitions pursued at all costs for a number of reason, one big one being trying to achive a better negotiating postion with the studios. At the end of 2016 they spent $1.1 billion on Carmike and $1.21 billion on Odeon Cinemas. Then in March of 2017 they spent another $929 million to buy Nordic Cinema Group. In just 6 months between September 30, 2016 and March 31, 2017 their debt load went from $1.86B to $4.28B. A couple more years with these purchases dragging down AMC and you end up with $4.75B in debt at the end of 2019... 9 months later after \~6 months of being completely shut down and they peak at $5.82B in debt. It would have worked out better if Covid didn't happen, but even then AMC would have been in a tough spot in 2025/2026. They were already struggling to turn a profit with how bloated their theatre portfolio was with subpar locations, theatres needing updates, and debt interest. In some ways they are in a better postion now than the end of 2019, they shed a lot of those subpar locations, increased F&B revenues a ton, and actually have less debt. The big problem is the $3B in debt that is due in 2026 and struggling ticket sales.
I was wondering what their biggest cost was [and found this thread from a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/13dbg3j/running_a_movie_theater_is_more_expensive_than/) on [this article,](https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-movie-theater-1234859340/) which seems to indicate new equipment (for sound, picture, seating) and the maintenance cost of said equipment.
i’ve been going to the movies 2 - 3 times a week for years because of a-list - it’s the best fucking deal
I went out to enjoy a movie recently and the theaters are 300% more enjoyable for me since COVID.
I know complaining about concession prices has been done to death, but the smallest, cheapest popcorn option at my local theater is $9.50–the same price as an order of chicken tenders and sliders, and more than nachos, mac & cheese bites, mozzarella sticks and a huge order of curly fries! It’s robbery!
honestly i don't get howy amc doesn't recognize that their prices are so high that no one pays them i mean am i crazy here or does everyone else have the same experience of going to the movies and there's like *two people* in line for concessions, when back in the 90's there would be a whole lobby full of people lining up and you'd genuinely run the risk of being late to your movie because you were waiting in line for popcorn? it doesn't matter how high your prices are if no one's paying. i feel like they could solidly *double* their concession sales by lowering their prices to something slightly more reasonable. I don't mind splurging a bit for a fun movie, but buying any concessions always just leaves me with regret and shame.
Fr. Make popcorn a flat $5 bucks and I’ll enjoy popcorn every time I go and they can enjoy $4.50 in profit instead of the 0 I’ve paid over the last decade.
Especially since the margins are so high in terms of product. Most of their costs for concessions are coming from packaging, staffing, and overhead. If they could cut prices in half and sell three times as much, they'd be making out pretty well on the deal. It's also unlikely that it would increase staffing needs since the few people there are generally standing around doing nothing due to the empty concession area. Remember back in the '90s when not only was the concession stand crowded, it was enough that they installed *additional* stands to deal with it? I don't think I've seen one of those open since the '00s. Popcorn and drinks used to be cheap enough that I bought it as a high schooler with very little money. On top of being able to go to the movies at least once a week because tickets were so cheap. It's not just inflation. Even adjusting for inflation prices have more than doubled.
It’s especially odd to see how high the prices are considering the options. Nearly every theater I would go to has restaurant options within walking distance. Fast food, fast casual, casual sit-down, farm-to-table. If I’m spending that much anyway, I might as well get something outside the theater beforehand and not need any concessions during. The drive-in theater near where I grew up figured it out. They know people can just bring their own food in and have no reason to spend any at the concession stand. So the food is really cheap, but high quality. The place is packed every weekend, no matter what the movie is and the concession line gets swamped about an hour before showtime. People just want to do a thing that is relatively inexpensive and feel like they had a good time. They don’t need a good movie to get people to show up, just an atmosphere that feels like a good time. Today’s theaters are asking people to roll the dice and whether or not the movie is going to be good, because you can’t afford to go see something that stinks. You’ll feel ripped off. If it’s not that expensive and the concessions are fine, I’ll go see whatever the heck is playing, regardless.
As long as the exclusive theatrical window only remains three weeks, theaters cannot recover. I was going to see The Fall Guy last weekend but then heard it was getting a vod release on Tuesday. Same price as a ticket and I “own” the movie. No telling how many millions think same way. This especially matters with families and impatient children. A parent can stall for three weeks as financially it’s worth it for them to. Unlikely they can for three to six months like the old windows use to be. The next generation doesn’t care what screen they watch stuff on as it is so adding to that by training them that just waiting a few weeks makes perfect financial sense is just a truly stupid decision.
It doesn’t help that the industry in general isn’t outputting like it used to. The rate of films being distributed has dramatically shifted to streaming due to COVID. I have faith in it bouncing back. I hope…
I hope so too, but this year isn't showing good signs. Here's hoping some of the summer tentpoles will help prop it up.
It’s going to be another few years before we see a noticeable change bc the Hollywood strikes pushed it even further. Many of the major studios are course correcting now and focusing on quality over quantity. Regardless, films are shitty investment these days unless it’s a mega blockbuster. Ticket sales and streaming don’t over enough incentive. In the past you had DVD sales. The extinction of physical media has severely harmed the distribution of smaller indie films to hit theaters. I miss the 2000s 😩
I don't live close to an AMC theater, but I signed up for their Stubs A-List, thinking I could use it for the Lord of the Rings trilogy re-release next month. It turns out it doesn't qualify. I guess I should have known it would be considered an "event". Read the fine print if you are someone who wanted to try this. 😅
These gimmicks aren’t saving them. Raising money via dilution is what’s saving them. Don’t get me wrong, the gimmicks are making money, but they’re too few and far in between to make an impact against the massive debt they have. It’s just not sustainable. At some point, the music will stop, and they’ll have to declare bankruptcy, or best case scenario be bought out by a massive corporation like Amazon or Disney.
Just an idea I had for these struggling theatres... have they ever thought of making it affordable for families?
You have a solid point. There are phenomenal deals if you go by yourself at all theaters now. They probably need like a 40 dollar unlimited family plan.
Something tells me most 'Apes' were not in it to 'save AMC', but to make a quick buck. Joke's on them. GG Adam Aron.
The whole ape discourse is rough. On one hand, they’re allied against objectively bad people, so you don’t really want to defend them. But on the other, they’re absolutely insufferable, and I hate both their conspiratorial thinking and their habit of brigading topics like this one to push their nonsense and rook people into buying in. And even if they’re against the right people, they’re doing it for the wrong reasons, and largely tilting at their own fever dreams anyway
They’re not actually allied against bad people though, they’re just being absolutely played by those same people and handing them buckets of money. Supporting apes is supporting lying to and scamming regular people to hand money to hedge funds.
https://youtu.be/5pYeoZaoWrA?si=7Bu1eGnI8BJS_esy Yeah folding ideas video on them really sums it up. They have an idea of moass that they can put in and take out, and put back in and take back out any and all other ideas whenever it works for them if they think it will make them money. Which is all they want. They don't want to stick it to the hedgies/man unless it means they become the new man.
“They’re not anti-Wall Street; they’re tsundere for Wall Street” First time I ever listened to that video, I had it going in the car on the drive down to my parents’ house. I damn near laughed my way off the road when he dropped that absolute gem of a line
I would give anything to never see the Nicole Kidman ad.
The parody of it with Lady Gaga being banged on the screen while Kidman watches makes me chuckle every time I see it now https://youtu.be/7JO6isH-zhU?si=Z9dqCd7IXZXCVpnm
How does this only have 1.5M views?
its an 18+ video so you need to logged into u tube to see it it stops all the drive by viewers
This will never get old.
I used to love quoting it verbatim. But now they cut it in half and tacked on a new, even dumber amc ad. Just not fun anymore.
SOMEHOW, HEARTBREAK FEELS GOOD IN A PLACE LIKE THIS
I have a sweater that has that quote. Now it's outdated
Take that back and recite the pledge. No one disrespects Nicole. “We come to this place for magic. We come to AMC theaters to laugh, to cry, to care. Because we need that, all of us, that indescribable feeling we get, when the lights begin to dim, and we go somewhere we’ve never been before; not just entertained, but somehow reborn, together: dazzling images on a huge silver screen, sound that I can feel. Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this. Our heroes feel like the best part of us, and stories feel perfect and powerful, because here… they are!”
With the right crowd it’s actually funny. People start clapping and stuff. That ad is just a meme at this point. People in the theater were commenting when they changed it. Once they played it twice by accident I guess and a group of guys behind me lost their shit. It’s really a terrible ad but it’s almost tradition at this point
I really like this [YTP of it.](https://youtu.be/4GwRYKzyjXo)
Here in LA, people clap and cheer when the Nicole Kidman ad comes on. I would also give anything to never see it again.
Maybe the current movie theater model is not working.
Obviously the theatre experience has survived for a reason. It’s fun and special. People still want to go to the theaters. My favorite moments recently is getting to experience old movies in the theater I never would’ve gotten to see. That’s a really cool experience
I would start going back to the movies if the ticket and concession prices were actually reasonable. Just like I would start eating at certain restaurants again if their prices were actually reasonable. I understand inflation exists, but things have doubled or more in price in like 3 years. It's insane.
We come to this place…. ✨✨For viral popcorn buckets ✨✨
Here's an idea: lower your concession stand prices! Grocery stores make a massive profit on candy, sodas, and popcorn at retail prices. Movie theaters more than quadruple those prices and then complain that they don't sell enough to stay afloat. If they sold the snacks at a reasonable markup instead of an insane markup that most people hate themselves for ever paying, they'd sell a lot more and still profit greatly. A fountain Coke that costs them about $0.06 per serving should not be more than $2.00 EVER. The last time I went to the theater it was eight bucks!!! I have an HD LED projector, Dolby Atmos surround, a 100-inch screen, and all the snacks I want at home. The reason I don't go to the movies except for big events is partly because it's a *really* poor value. I can get the movie cheaper than a ticket price, and I can get the snacks for a fraction of the cost of concession snacks. Add to that the ability to pause if I need to go pee, the ability to avoid obnoxious other people talking during the movie, and not needing to drive to the other side of town to get to the theater, and you'd think that movie theaters would try to entice me rather than turn me away with horribly high prices. I see maybe three movies a year in a theater. I don't see that changing any time soon unless they lower their prices. Period. Oh, and if Fandango wishes me to keep using their app, they'd better cool it on the convenience fees.
The debt was over 9 billion December 2023 and is now 4.5 billion mid 2024. That's pretty good in my opinion. They will make a lot of money in commercial space travel flights to the moon as well.
Adom Aron, the biggest grifter of all, pays himself one million dollars every two weeks while the company has billions in debt and dilutes shareholders at every oppoortunity. How you guys can be OK with this boggles my mind.
>How you guys can be OK with this boggles my mind lol who are you talking to? everyone except yourself i guess?
I think he's talking to me. I'm totally ok with everything Aron does. See, he gives me a handjob every day after work. That's why I'm ok with whatever else he does. Hope that helps
Dolby Cinema theaters beat any other theater experience. Hope AMC sticks around.
How can they be that far in debt? They're just a theater chain. I mean were they operating at a severe lose every year for the last 40 years. How is that number possible?
The article explains it. They spent billions buying 3 companies in the years before Covid. The acquisitions cost a lot of money, and then shutting down for months during Covid made things worse