Even with virtually all its U.S. movie theaters resuming operations,
AMC Entertainment -- the largest U.S. movie chain -- says it could run out of cash by the end of this year or by early 2021.
Roughly 83% of AMC's domestic theaters were re-opened starting
in late August -- with 494 U.S. theaters open out of its total of 598. However, those venues opened only at a limited capacity of about 20% to 40%.
B. Riley Securities
estimates AMC could witness revenue sinking to $1.2 billion in 2020 from its total $5.5 billion in 2019 -- due to COVID-19 pandemic disruptions that included all theater closed from March through
August.
Closed theaters in California, Maryland, New York, North Carolina and Washington represent 23% of AMC revenue, according to B. Riley Securities. Included in this list
are the two biggest individual markets for movies -- Los Angeles and New York City.
For the rest of the year, the estimate is that only four big studio movies will be in
U.S. theaters for the typically strong holiday season.advertisement
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Major releases include: Universal’s “The Croods: A New Age,” Walt Disney’s “Free Guy,”
Paramount Pictures’ “Coming 2 America” and Warner Bros.′ “Wonder Woman 1984.”
Eric Wold, entertainment analyst for B. Riley Securities, says the lack of
new films has led to an 85% decline in same-theater attendance versus the same period a year ago.
Considering all these conditions, he writes: “We are not surprised to
see studios continue to push out the film-release calendar under these circumstances.”For the last two months (August 12 through October 12), national TV advertising spending for
theatrical movies has totaled $73.5 million, according to iSpot.tv -- down from $297.9 million from the same period a year ago.