Hollywood PANICS as WOKE movie FLOPS threaten to BANKRUPT movie THEATERS!

Adam Aron, as always, remains unruffled by widespread talk of AMC Theatres‘ financial woes.

At CinemaCon, the annual gathering of exhibitors and Hollywood studios that’s underway in Las Vegas this week, there’s loads of chatter as to the financial health and future of the world’s largest theater circuit, and whether a restructuring is in the offing. According to Aron, who sat down with The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, the answer is an emphatic “No.”

“Personally, I think it’s inconceivable that AMC would have to restructure like Regal Cinemas did and file for Chapter 11. One of the things I’m very proud of is that going into the pandemic, AMC was in very strong position. We are the biggest and best movie theater chain in the world. Somehow all of us on this planet got handed COVID as something to deal with. And the movie theater industry has been hit quite hard by COVID, and it’s been slow to recover. And the labor strikes were a double whammy. We are already at the four-year mark since COVID shut theaters in March of 2020. And the box office is still not yet back to where it was before,” said Aron.

“Having said that, and it’s not just me who thinks it, AMC has been more creative and more successful in trying to cope with COVID than just about any exhibitor in the planet,” he said.

While laden with $4.5 billion in debt, AMC has enough cash on hand to get through 2024, according to Aron. From there, the executive thinks it will be smooth sailing since Aron is predicting a robust 2025 and 2026 at the box office. Once earnings improve, everything else does too. “So, I actually think the problem has already been solved, which makes me quite optimistic and enthusiastic, but we just have to get there,” Aron added.

AMC’s cash balance was $885 million as of Dec. 31, 2023. “That’s money in the bank. It suggests to me that not only have we weathered the storm so far, but to the extent that there’s any storm left, we will weather that as well. There’s almost no scenario that I can foresee where we don’t have enough cash to make it through 2024. But everything that I see tells me 2025 and 2026 are going to be gangbusters,” he continued. “And that means our EBITDA is going to go way up. And so, I’m already looking ahead and am quite relaxed about where our company will be and where our industry will be looking forward, which is a much different circumstance than it was in January and February of ’24, which, of course, was a debacle with revenue down 20 percent year over year.”

Like other circuits, AMC is grappling with a dramatic downturn at the box office so far this year because of delays due to the strikes. (Although some forecasts have gotten slightly better: analytics firm Gower Street projected global theatrical revenues in 2024 will hit $32.3 billion, up from the $31.5 billion originally forecast.) The box office downturn was the second big crisis following the pandemic.

After its latest quarterly earnings results were disclosed on Feb. 28, Wall Street analyst Eric Handler at Roth MKM doled out a glass half-full and half-empty view for AMC. “Improvements have been seen on the top line with average revenue per patron up 31% since 2019,” Handler wrote. “However, profit is significantly lagging; average EBITDA per patron down 18% and cash burn remains considerable. Liquidity isn’t an issue with $884mn in cash on hand, but net leverage remains very high at ~9x.”

Aron has taken several unorthodox steps to help fill the gaps. Late last summer, he took the unprecedented step of distributing Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour after Hollywood studios passed on the terms presented by Swift and her team. The movie, which AMC licensed to other circuits, became the most successful concert film of all time with more than $261 million globally. AMC next distributed Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, which did far more modest business but was a smart branding opportunity.

Aron told THR he would certainly consider distributing more films, but that they would have to make sense. A big-budget studio tentpole would probably not be the right business for AMC to be in. Special events are another matter, including live concerts and beaming the Paris Olympics this summer into AMC cinemas.

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#hollywood #woke #dei

[ral]

Turns out that insulting audiences for the past decade doesn't make them want to come back.

[--Sama-]

Why would I pay money to people who hate me? Make normal movies without agendas, without victimhood, without disrespecting others and maybe some customers will come back.

[Detroit_Vs._Everybody]

I absolutely loathe modern movies. They can all fail as far as I’m concerned.

[livefree]

Unfortunately I don't share the optimism. The woke writers and others will continue to ruin films and we fans will continue to avoid movies & theaters.

[shirw]

We started buying physical media again. We can watch a whole (non-woke) show for less than my husband and I spend going to the movies one time.

[ironvlogger]

Why should I pay for movies and shows that portray bad morals and disrespect characters and the art of storytelling themselves? And enabling corrupt studios

And why leave the house if they don’t want “this” audience?


I miss the the theaters, I really do but along with everything mentioned above and the cost’s it’s not worth it anymore

[mistiinseattle]

They are producing absolute garbage. I can watch a lot of great old stuff free on YouTube. This woke stuff won't get a dime of my money.

[marij]

I refuse to pay for woke crap. The movies I have seen in theaters include The Sound of Freedom, Avatar the Way of Water, The Chosen, and Top Gun Maverick. I do not want to spend my money on an industry that hates its customers and hates my country. It is now rare for me to go to the theater. I do not see that changing. If interested, I will see something coming out of Angel Studios.

[penguinvic]

I used to eat at a surprisingly successful downmarket café that served basic food, had a rack of magazines to read and played soft rock 60s covers over the PA. New owners took over, got rid of the magazines and music, completely changed the menu to “new age” food as …

… overnight all the customers left and were not replaced, and the café went broke shortly after this.

Moral of story: Never, not ever upset your established customer base. Economics 101. What part of this don’t Hollywood get?

[XiaoFury]

Hollywood refuses to stop going woke. They just can't stop.

[Andrew_TS]

Too bad for theaters. If grocery stores ordered food to sell and all their distributors sent them rotten, expired food, then both of them would go out of business.

[indy_go_blue]

Couldn't happen to a more worthy industry. You need to start showing classic movies and making a Friday or Saturday night movie a real event like it was 70 years ago.

[ricjona]

Our local theater has been showing classic movies.They sell tickets for $5.They are selling out those showings. They make their money on concessions. There are so many blockbuster movies that benefit by being seen on the big screen using newer sound and imaging will enhance the experience. So why not remaster movies from the 1930s to the 2000s and let generations of people who have never seen those movies on the big screen or never seen them at all, see them the way they were meant to be seen.

We are going to see the Wizard of Oz in a couple of weeks. Home theaters don't do it justice.

[sebastiantrias]

Ever thought of making good movies instead of adapting an agenda.

[crabbypaddy]

Yeah, I do not spend money on Marxist propaganda and Marxist DEI agenda movies. When minorities has to be majorities in movies, and gender swapping existing characters is common, my wallet slam shut.

Hollywood, Disney and a few others has forgotten how to write good scripts with and no longer create characters we empathise or identify with. The movies made now are hollow, empty and shallow and I could not give a toss about the characters or their sexuality or pronouns that add absolutely nothing to the story.

[eugenefleming]

Sounds like they can't make good movies so theaters are going bankrupt

[mdturnerinoz]

Harrison Ford should apologize for letting him be treated like he was in the final "Indiy" movie! SHAME ON HIM! His character should have been kept as brave as it once was, and then he would have gone out in a blaze of glory somehow; that's how Indy 1 would have!

[Dragoon-obmg]

I think the time of movie theaters is coming to an end

[Mark-ipwy]

I have family and friends that all have dvd and bluray we have been swapping for months saved money, not seen any dei woke crap, movies will never improve, its over, all thanks to the DEI, well done how to kill an industry.

[georgeawestjr.]

Good. Let Hollyweird go under for all I care.
However, at the same time, I feel bad for the theatre owners and their employees. 😕