AMC Will Overcome the Soft "Lightyear" Debut

With the theatrical debut of a third potential blockbuster this past weekend, it's easy to see why AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC) was looking good to even a skeptical investor like me. Yet Walt Disney's (NYSE: DIS) Lightyear -- the origin story of a lead character in Pixar's genre-defying Toy Story franchise -- failed to take flight the same way as its titular space ranger.

Lightyear took in just $50.6 million in domestic ticket sales over the weekend, well below industry forecasts for $70 million at the box office. It's also less than half of $120.9 million that Toy Story 4 collected in its opening weekend three summers ago. It's too early to call the film a flop, despite what social critics of "woke" Disney may be saying. It's also premature to call this an early end to what should be a strong summer for AMC and its multiplex-operating peers.

Summer technically starts this week, but for exhibitors the season began four weekends ago when Top Gun: Maverick wowed audiences with record-breaking box office receipts for the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Two weeks later it was Jurassic World: Dominion roaring to life. Lightyear should've been the third strong debutante, but it missed the mark.

Source Fool.com