Laura Carollo
Research expert covering cinema and film
AMC Theatres worldwide - statistics & facts
The American-based cinema chain AMC Theatres is the leading cinema chain in the world. Although AMC is active on a global scale via different divisions and subsidiaries, the American market remains its highest-grossing segment with a revenue of almost 3.69 billion U.S. dollars in the United States in 2023. As of March 2023, AMC was the first cinema chain in the United States and in Canada with almost 600 sites and over 7,700 sceeens, surpassing competitors such as Regal Cinemas and Cinemark.
More recently, AMC and Taylor Swift closed a deal on the distribution of a concert film of her new “ERAS Tour”, which already broke AMC’s previous pre-sale records. The movie became the highest-grossing concert film ever released, and could potentially launch a new trend of movie experiences.
A slow recovery
AMC Theatres deeply suffered from decreased attendance during the pandemic, which led to an overall income loss of over 4.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. Four years after, AMC’s future is looking brighter as revenue has been slowly bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels. Admissions make up for most of AMC’s revenues, while concessions generated more than 1.6 billion dollars in 2023. The average ticket price has been sharply increasing since 2020 for all cinema circuits; yet AMC tickets were the most expensive on average, and cost two euros more than the 2019 price.Attendance has yet to catch up
However, total attendance has had more difficulty recovering. While attendance figures amounted to about 240 million as of 2023, a significant increase in comparison to the previous years, they are still far under pre-pandemic results. Expanding video-on-demand offerings is one reason why moviegoers are reluctant to go back to theaters. In 2018, moviegoers did not express a clear preference for watching a movie in theaters versus at home, but four years later, that was no longer the case. In 2022, more than half of moviegoers said they would rather watch a movie at home than on the big screen.How to attract cinemagoers back
Despite a very lucrative 2023 summer box office, most notably thanks to the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, the second half of the year was noticeably weaker. The past writers and actors strike, which officially ended on November, caused many movie releases to be delayed. To stay afloat, many chains are looking into new strategies to lure cinemagoers back. At the beginning of 2023, AMC announced the introduction of a new pricing strategy, whose goal was to charge different prices according to seats. AMC quickly backtracked and retracted the idea, which was highly unpopular among many moviegoers.More recently, AMC and Taylor Swift closed a deal on the distribution of a concert film of her new “ERAS Tour”, which already broke AMC’s previous pre-sale records. The movie became the highest-grossing concert film ever released, and could potentially launch a new trend of movie experiences.
