'Inside Out 2' helps bring banner weekend for AMC Theatres
Disney-owned Pixar’s new animated film "Inside Out 2" helped AMC Theatres record a banner weekend for attendance and ticket sales.
AMC Theatres said Monday the weekend of June 13-16 notched the chain’s largest number of moviegoers in the U.S. and internationally to date this year.
About 3.8 million people went to AMC Theatres locations in the U.S. over the weekend, AMC said. Friday, Saturday and Sunday each saw more than 1 million guests.
The movie theater operator reported year-over-year double-digit-percentage gains in weekend attendance across its non-U.S. locations as well.
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It linked the massive level of attendance at its locations to how well several films have done at theaters – one of those was "Inside Out 2," which came out on Friday.
The highly anticipated Pixar sequel brought in more than $154 million in domestic ticket sales during its first weekend, Disney said. Globally, it has made over $294.2 million so far, according to Box Office Mojo.
AMC also pointed to Sony’s "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as another attendance driver for the weekend. That film has generated $215.4 million in ticket sales globally since debuting nearly two weeks ago, according to Box Office Mojo.
The influx of customers from those films also helped make June 13–16 become the weekend with the highest admissions revenue of 2024 both domestically and internationally for AMC, according to the movie theater chain.
Disney previously identified "Inside Out 2" as one of three big movies on its summer slate, along with "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" which came out in May and "Deadpool & Wolverine," which is expected to debut in July.
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In early May, AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron expressed confidence about the second half of 2024 and beyond while speaking to analysts and investors on the company’s first-quarter earnings call.
"I could go one and on and on about the movies that are coming in 2024," he said. "But not only are we confident about the second half of 2024, we are also literally enthralled about an accelerating box office recovery as we head into 2025 and on into 2026."
He said 2025’s box office "should be materially stronger than it has been in several years."