Posted in: Movies, Warner Bros, Wonder Woman | Tagged: AMC Theatres, cinemark, IMAX, movies, regal cinemas, Warner Bros, Wonder Woman 1984
Theater Chain Stocks Get a Boost from a Solid WW84 Box Office Release
In light of the "good for a pandemic" weekend that Wonder Woman 1984 had at the box office, theater chains [except AMC] saw their stock increase.
The light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel seems to be on the horizon but we aren't there quite yet. We still need to mass distribute the vaccine before things can really get back to normal or at least whatever version of normal will be possible in a post-COVID-19 world. Wonder Woman 1984 opened on Christmas and set a pandemic best box office of $16.7 million domestically. In any other year, those would be "getting fired and possibly put in director jail" numbers but in 2020 it's enough to have an impact. According to The Wrap, several theater chains saw their stocks get a boost on Monday after the numbers for the weekend box office came in.
Cinemark's shares jumped 6.4% on Monday morning, while Imax also enjoyed a 3.6% boost; National CineMedia, which specializes in cinema ads, was up 4%, and Marcus Corp., which operates both cinemas and hotels — two of the hardest-hit industries during the pandemic — was up 7.1% a few hours into trading on Monday.
Those were the early numbers and the latter ones are close to the same but not quite. Cinemark ended up closing out at 2.79% increase to $16.97 a share. IMAX actually finished better than The Wrap's early numbered and closed out at $17.70 a share with a 4.06% increase. CineMedia closed out with a 2.65% increase and Marcus Corp. closed out ar $13.29 a share with a 6.75% increase. Regal Cinemas are still closed and they only got a small boost of .04% from the Wonder Woman 1984 box office as it closed out two cents higher than it did the day before.
Unfortunately, AMC is still in trouble. Despite other companies gaining some traction in the stock market AMC still went down to $2.39 a share or another 4.78%. The last we heard about the company they were going to run out of money by the end of the year and the fact that other companies gained, even Regal gained a little and they're closed, is not looking good. if anyone should be seeing the benefit of a good [for 2020] box office weekend from Wonder Woman 1984 it should be the number one theater chain in the country. They didn't and that does not bode well for AMC. The first few months of 2021 are going to be 'do or die' for that company and it might not end well.
Summary: Fast forward to the 1980s as Wonder Woman's next big-screen adventure finds her facing two all-new foes: Max Lord and The Cheetah.
Wonder Woman 1984, directed by Patty Jenkins, stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, and Gabriella Wilde. It was released on December 25th in theaters and on HBO Max.