This year has seen the shutdown of many major social attractions due to the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. With nearly 23 million cases worldwide and 5.6 million in the United States alone, lots of families have chosen to stay indoors with games and television or engage in outdoor activities at places like parks. As the debate rages on over whether the country should be opening the economy amidst the viral outbreak, some businesses feel they’ve waited long enough to reopen and simply can’t continue losing revenue.
Such is the case with the largest theater chain in the world, AMC Theatres, who many analysts predicted wouldn’t survive COVID-19. However, CEO Adam Aron recently expressed his belief that they’ve absolutely made it through the worst of the pandemic and will be just fine. Soon after, he proudly announced that over 100 locations across the country would open their doors on August 20th to coincide with the 100th anniversary of AMC Entertainment, and his hope is that that around two-thirds of all theaters will be reopened by September 3rd.
To celebrate its century of business, the company ran a special upon opening back up Thursday, charging only 15 cents per ticket for any moviegoers willing to attend a film. And in an interview with FOX Business, Aron said that seats were sold out at nearly every newly-reopened location.
Welcome, America, back to the movies. We’re only selling 30 percent of our seats, and so we are sold out today almost all across the country.
AMC Theatres will continue to offer discounted rates of $5 per ticket for the myriad of popular classics that are currently being screened as the company awaits bigger upcoming titles like Tenet and The New Mutants, which will be priced at $10 each at most locations. Due to higher cleaning costs as a result of the pandemic, however, prices may see an increase in the future, but there’s been no confirmation of when or how much that increase will be.