The AMC 25 Theaters in Times Square in New York are shown on Tuesday, July 8, 2014.
Richard Levine | Corbis News |
AMC Entertainment warned investors on Wednesday of a decline in key metrics in the second quarter, causing the share price to fall by more than 7%.
The company blamed last year's actors and writers' strike for the decline in theatrical releases, which ultimately led to “weakness” in the quarter ended June 30.
AMC's preliminary results showed a revenue decline of more than 23% to $1.03 billion. The company also expects a net loss of $32.8 million compared to a profit of $8.6 million in the second quarter of 2023. Full results will be released on August 2.
“As we correctly predicted and previously announced, the ongoing actor and writer strikes in 2023 have greatly reduced the number of films hitting theaters in the early months of 2024,” said Adam Aron, chairman and CEO of AMC Entertainment, in a statement. “This explains the weakness in our preliminary results for the second quarter of 2024 compared to the same quarter a year ago.”
The cinema industry has seen a rebound over the past month after a pandemic-related slump, as moviegoers flocked to films such as Disney and “Inside Out 2” by Pixar, Universal and “Despicable Me 4” from Illumination, “Twisters” from Universal and the surprising indie horror film “Longlegs” from Neon.
“However, if you just look at the quarter as a whole, it's easy for the layperson to miss the incredibly good news that was emerging in the second quarter,” Aron said. “Finally, moviegoing seems to be on an upward trend again.”
Still to come is the highly anticipated release of Disney and Marvel's Deadpool and Wolverine, which is expected to have the highest opening of 2024 and of any R-rated film ever.
And the last part of the year has some heavyweights coming up. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is coming in early September, Joker: Folie a Deux is coming in October along with Venom: The Last Dance, and November has Gladiator II, Moana 2 and Wicked. December also has Kraven the Hunter, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Mufasa: The Lion King.
“AMC remains confident that industry-wide film revenues will continue to gain strength in the second half of 2024 and into 2025 and 2026,” Aron said. “This, in turn, suggests that AMC should see increasing adjusted EBITDA when and if overall industry revenues increase. Such improvements in revenue, earnings and adjusted EBITDA are our current expectations going forward, all of which bode well for AMC's future.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.
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