Old Movies and $3 Tickets Aren't Enough for AMC Stock
It was another rough weekend for the country's multiplex operators. AMC Entertainment and its peers collected less than $53 million in domestic ticket sales over the three-day weekend. It was barely above the $52 million in box office receipts for exhibitors last weekend, the softest showing since late January. Even if you add Monday's admissions -- during the Labor Day holiday -- for an extra day as a boost, the last two weekends are the weakest admissions for the 10 highest-grossing flicks in nearly six months.
A perfect snapshot to illustrate how Hollywood has gone bone dry in cranking out compelling content is that the top draw on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday came out in either May of this year or December of last year. Maverick and Spidey continue doing a lot of the heavy lifting to keep the silver screen golden.
Was the strong initial burst of box-office activity this summer simply a case of revenge viewing -- along the lines of the revenge-travel trend for the tourism industry that had folks making up for lost vacations earlier in the pandemic by booking getaways early in the peak season? There may be some truth to that, but at the end of the day it's likely a matter of studios loading their potential summertime winners early in the season as they have historically done. The sharp deceleration over the past month is notable and potentially problematic. However, it's not worrisome unless some of the higher-profile releases coming out later this year fall flat.
Source Fool.com
