Posted in: Movies | Tagged: amc, AMC Theatres, movies

AMC Raises Enough Money to Keep the Lights On Through the Winter

The last time we wrote about AMC Theatres, it once again looked like bad things were on the horizon. The country's biggest theater chain wasn't sure if it was going to have enough money to get through January, and if AMC goes under then, thousands of people were going to lose jobs. Most of this is because people won't get their collective shit together and wear a mask, and the previous administration in the United States was walking around with their thumbs in their ears. Now things are far worse than they were when movie studios weren't releasing anything last summer, and while there is hope on the horizon with a vaccine, the rollout has not exactly gone through thanks to said thumb in their ears administration. AMC announced today [via Deadline] that they have raised enough money to make it through the winter and possibly longer, which is a very good thing to hear.

AMC has said that they have raised $713 million in fresh financing and that would be "enough cash to "make it through this dark, coronavirus-impacted winter." This is on top of the $204 million they raised last month to get through 2020 and CEO Adam Aron said, "that any talk of an imminent bankruptcy for AMC is completely off the table." Aron went on to say "that with any kind of semblance of recovery, just, a partial recovery, we raised enough money to make it through all of 2021. … With the world getting vaccinated now, we all understand that theaters are closed or empty in January, but that's not where we are going to be in the summer hopefully, not where are next winter. But of course, nobody knows."

Since the doors closed on movie theaters back in March and then sort of reopened this summer, companies have been having a very hard time trying to find the funds to pay their rent, utilities, and workers when not only does no one feel safe enough to go go to the movies but no one is releasing any movies. While other companies go a boost from Wonder Woman 1984 last month, AMC took a hit with their stock price falling. Aron says they aren't done fundraising and that the "two words describe why we were was successful in raising this money – sheer will. Many people have underestimated the resolve of the AMC management team to power through this pandemic crisis. … We were able to state the case that AMC that was the leader in this industry going into the pandemic … and that while we had a liquidity problem while our theaters were shut, the movie industry was going to have a bright future again. We just needed to bridge this liquidity issue. Both equity and debt investors do not believe that movie theaters are going to stay shut forever."

The movie theater industry has needed to come to terms with the fact that streaming is a very real thing for many years now, and 2020 forced them to do that. Granted, this was probably the worst possible scenario, but it will start an important conversation that needed to happen many years ago. It's just really good to hear that no one is going to lose their jobs or any companies like AMC are going to go under. Now they just need to work on luring everyone back to the theaters and what that is going to entail now that they have the option of watching some movies at home. "Today, the sun is shining on AMC," said Aron, and that's about the best we can hope for these days.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!