AMC Entertainment Q4 2024 Earnings Report

AMC Entertainment EPS Results

• Actual EPS: N/A
• Consensus EPS: -$0.16
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

AMC Entertainment Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $1.30 billion
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

AMC Entertainment Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/25/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC), through its subsidiaries, engages in the theatrical exhibition business. It owns, operates, or has interests in theatres in the United States and Europe. The company was founded in 1920 and is headquartered in Leawood, Kansas.

AMC Entertainment Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Strong Q4 2024 results with 18% revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA more than triple year-ago to $164.8 M, and record cash flow from operations of $203.6 M with $113.9 M free cash flow.
• Record attendance milestone of 62.4 M global guests in Q4 (+20% YoY) and all-time fourth quarter high food and beverage revenue per patron of $7.15, driving full-year 2024 per-patron revenue records.
• Balance sheet significantly strengthened: reduced debt and finance leases by $375.9 M in 2024 (over $1.34 B since 2022), extended $2.4 B maturities, and ended Q4 with $632.3 M cash on hand.
• Optimistic 2025 outlook with a projected 17% increase in wide-release films, sequential quarterly box office acceleration, and anticipated $500–$1 B domestic industry box office growth.
• AMC GO Plan underway to expand premium formats (IMAX Laser, Dolby, XL screens), upgrade seating, enhance loyalty programs, and drive ancillary revenues through movie-themed merchandise and home popcorn distribution.

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings, and welcome to the AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Earnings Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to John Merryweather, Vice President, Capital Markets and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, John.

[John Merriwether, VP, Capital Markets and IR at AMC Entertainment]

Thank you, Kevin. Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everyone to AMC's fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four earnings webcast. With me this afternoon is Adam Aron, our Chairman and CEO and Sean Goodman, our Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn the webcast over to Adam, let me remind everyone that some of the comments made by management during this webcast may contain forward looking statements that are based on management's current expectations.

[John Merriwether, VP, Capital Markets and IR at AMC Entertainment]

Numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those that might be expressed today. Many of these risks and uncertainties are discussed in our most recent public filings, including our most recently filed 10 ks and 10 Q. Several of the factors that will determine the company's future results are beyond the ability of the company to control or predict. In light of the uncertainties inherent in any forward looking statements, listeners are cautioned against relying on these statements. The company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information or future events.

[John Merriwether, VP, Capital Markets and IR at AMC Entertainment]

On this webcast, we may reference non GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA, constant currency and free cash flow, among others. For a full reconciliation of our non GAAP measures to GAAP results, please see our earnings release posted in the Investor Relations section of our website earlier today. After our prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. This afternoon's webcast is being recorded and a replay will be available in the Investor Relations section of our website at amctheatres.com later today. With that, I'll turn the call over to Adam.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Thank you, John. Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining us today. What a superb quarter AMC just completed, especially so in November and December of twenty twenty four, thanks to hit movies like Gladiator two, Wicked and Moana two, which pushed Thanksgiving patronage at AMC across The United States to the highest AMC has ever seen in our one hundred and five year history. And MUFASA The Lion King, along with numerous other titles, gave us results in December that were just stellar as well. AMC revenue in the fourth quarter was up 18% year over year and our adjusted EBITDA of $164,800,000 was more than triple.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

May I say that again? Our adjusted EBITDA was more than triple the adjusted EBITDA that was reported for the fourth quarter a year ago. We handily beat consensus estimates for both revenue and for adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four. Importantly, AMC generated more than $200,000,000 of cash from operating activities and $114,000,000 in free cash flow in the fourth quarter. It was our highest quarterly cash flow post pandemic.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

These results underscore the continued progress that AMC has been making as we continue on a road to recovery, buttressed by a growing lineup of consumer appealing movies opening exclusively in movie theaters. More than 62,000,000 guests visited an AMC theater worldwide, AMC here in The United States, Odeon in Europe and our operations in The Middle East in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, marking a post pandemic fourth quarter record for us and an impressive 20% increase in attendance compared to the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. Complementing this fourth quarter attendance milestone, moviegoers enthusiastically embraced the variety and quality of our food and beverage offerings, driving food and beverage revenue per patron to $7.15 an all time fourth quarter record for AMC ever. All those quarter over quarter improvements are especially noteworthy given AMC's incredibly high market share and the resulting strong financial performance that AMC enjoyed in last year's fourth quarter, specifically due to our distributing Taylor Swift's The Era's Tour movie and Beyonce's Renaissance film in October, November and December of twenty twenty three to great acclaim. Looking at the full year of 2024, AMC welcomed some two twenty four million moviegoers to our theaters across the globe.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And those moviegoers gravitated toward our premium experiences to our largest screens, our best projection technologies, our most immersive sound systems and our luxurious seating. Accordingly, we are pleased to report to you that for full year 2024, AMC achieved all time per patron records on several key metrics, an all time record for admissions revenue per patron, an all time record for food and beverage revenue per patron, and an all time record for total revenue per patron. Another crucial accomplishment during 2024 was AMC's continued successful strengthening of our balance sheet. Sean will provide more details in just a few minutes, but suffice it to say that our balance sheet is meaningfully stronger today as a result of the significant actions that AMC took during the year to reduce our debt, to lengthen our debt maturities and to bolster our cash reserves. 2024 was truly a year of two halves.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

The first half was heavily impacted by Hollywood's long strikes of 2023, followed by a resurgent second half driven by an increase in new releases and an overall stronger film slate. The domestic industry box office, which is kind of the basic measure of the size of our industry, which was only $3,600,000,000 for the first six months of twenty twenty four, soared to $5,100,000,000 in the second six months of twenty twenty four, much, much stronger than the first half by orders of magnitude. The second half turnaround was certainly eventful with a number of long standing box office records being shattered. Notably, in the second half, the movie industry saw the highest grossing animated film in history. It saw the most successful R rated film of all time.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

It saw the highest grossing musical film adaptation of a Broadway musical of all time. And as I said earlier, we at AMC enjoyed the biggest Thanksgiving weekend box office ever. Looking at all the progress made in the latter half of 2024, it seems to us that it's clear that our industry finally is getting healthier. We're still not where we want to be, we're still not where we need to ultimately be, but real progress has been and is being made. And looking to 2025, the current year that started less than sixty days ago, At AMC, we are highly optimistic that the box office for this new current year will feel much more in line with that of the robust revenues of the second half of twenty twenty four as compared to the anemic revenues of the first half of twenty twenty four.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Early projections indicate that the number of wide release films in 2025 could increase by approximately 17% compared to the number of wide release films in 2024, representing yet another significant step toward ultimately getting to pre pandemic output levels and another cause for our optimism that the box office will materially rise in 2025. During this current new year, we anticipate the box office will strengthen with each successive quarter. Historically, Q1 has been the quietest period of the year, and this year is likely to be no exception to that long standing trend, driven by seasonal consumer behavior and studio release patterns. But following Q1, we believe the box office is set to heat up with Q2 poised to significantly outpace the first three months of this year. As we transition into the heart of the big summer movie season, Q3 looks to be a vibrant summer for moviegoing and importantly to us for AMC.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And then we hope to close out 2025 big with a wave of highly anticipated franchise sequels, including the second part of Universal's highly successful Wicked, Disney's Zootopia two, and what can you say about this film, the next installment of James Cameron's mind bogglingly successful Epic Saga Avatar. With the potential for each quarter in 2025 to build upon the last, we currently estimate that 2025 domestic industry box office could see a 500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 growth compared to 2024. And remember that given AMC's historic market share levels, about two nice of any heightened box office should flow straight in the direction of AMC Entertainment. With that as a preamble, and I'm going to come back a little bit more to talk about some initiatives now underway as the company has some thoughts on our recent performance in the markets. Let me turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Shawn Goodman. Shawn?

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

Thanks, Adam. Thanks, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. Indeed, the fourth quarter once again did prove that moviegoing demand is robust when compelling content is available on the big screens. During the quarter, we welcomed 62,400,000 guests throughout theaters around the world. This is a post pandemic fourth quarter record that exceeded the prior year by some 20%.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

And not only did we achieve an attendance record, we also achieved all time fourth quarter record beverage revenue per patron of $7.15 and our second highest fourth quarter admissions revenue per patron of $11.56 As a result of this, we registered fourth quarter post pandemic records for both total admissions and total food and beverage revenue, and our overall revenue grew 18.3% compared to the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three to hit a post pandemic fourth quarter record of $1,300,000,000 Our results show that the continued focus on enhancing the guest experience, growing profit per patron and overall operating efficiency are indeed yielding results. Our revenue per patron is now approximately 34% higher than it was in pre pandemic twenty nineteen. This is driven primarily by growth in food and beverage revenue per patron of 51%. The success in food and beverage revenue per patron is a result of our market leading initiatives, including collectible movie themed merchandise, specialty cocktails, menu enhancements and mobile ordering technology. When comparing our results to the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three, it's important to note that comparisons may not really provide the full picture.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

This is because you may recall that in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three, AMC distributed the highly successful concert movies Taylor Swift, The Era's Tour and Renaissance, a film by Beyonce. These concert movies had special event ticket pricing and generated higher than usual food and beverage revenue per patron associated with high demand collectible concession items. So while the fourth quarter admissions revenue per patron declined by approximately 2.4% compared to Q4 twenty twenty three, when we normalize for the impact of the concert movies, admissions revenue per patron actually increased by 3.2%. Likewise, food and beverage revenue per patron appears to be only slightly ahead of the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. However, when we normalize for the impact of the concert movies, food and beverage revenue per patron saw an increase of approximately 2.8%. And while we are discussing the impact of last year's concert movie events, we should note that AMC recorded domestic market shares in excess of 35% for these two movies in 2023, and this makes market share comparisons somewhat difficult. Now when you couple our fourth quarter twenty twenty four revenue records with our focus on efficiently delivering the best possible guest experience, adjusted EBITDA increases from $47,900,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three to 164,800,000 this year. That's an increase of more than 240%. And these results were achieved in both the domestic business, where adjusted EBITDA more than tripled to $123,000,000 and the international business where adjusted EBITDA increased more than fourfold to $41,800,000 These results are a clear indication of the operating leverage inherent in our business.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

Revenue increased by 18.3%. This led to an adjusted EBITDA increase of 244%. This operating leverage is another reason to be optimistic about AMC's future as our industry continues along a recovery trajectory. Okay, let's now move to a discussion about cash flow and the balance sheet. A highlight of this quarter is cash flow. We generated $203,600,000 of cash from operating activities and $113,900,000 in free cash flow. These are our very best cash flow numbers since the fourth quarter of twenty nineteen. And we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $632,300,000 It is worth noting that historically we generate cash from working capital during the second and fourth quarters and we tend to use cash from working capital during the first and third quarters.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

This pattern will of course depend on the timing of phone releases and the pattern of audience attendance during holiday periods. But during the fourth quarter, we benefited from strong cash generated from working capital that we expect will largely reverse in the first quarter of twenty twenty five when many payments related to the successful fourth quarter are made. Talking about cash flow, CapEx net of landlord contributions was $83,900,000 in the fourth quarter and this brings the total net CapEx spend to $213,700,000 for the full year 2024. We expect CapEx in 2025 to be in the range of 175,000,000 to $225,000,000 From a theater footprint perspective, during the fourth quarter, we added another one new high performing theater and we permanently closed three underperforming locations. So, this brings the total number of locations permanently closed since the pandemic began to 192 and the total new locations opened to 62.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

So this represents a net reduction of 130 locations or approximately 13% of our locations at December 3139. And we continue to see that the 62 new locations very significantly outperform the 192 closed locations. Going forward, as we review and rationalize the theater portfolio at every opportunity, we'll continue to invest in our circuit to enhance the guest experience. Note that the deferred rent balance at the end of twenty twenty four was approximately $37,600,000 and we plan to reduce this balance by another approximately $8,000,000 during 2025. From a capital markets perspective, we were once again active during Q4, continuing to strengthen our balance sheet to position the company for sustainable long term success.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

During the course of 2024, we have reduced the principal balance of our debt and finance leases by $375,900,000 We have extended the maturity of approximately $2,400,000,000 of debt that was due in 2026 to 2029 and beyond. We've raised approximately $262,000,000 of gross proceeds from the sale of our Class A common stock. And in addition, last month, January, we received $171,700,000 as initial cash proceeds associated with the establishment of forward positions for 30,000,000 shares of our common stock plus at the market offerings of 17,100,000.0 shares. Strengthening the balance sheet is a priority and since the beginning of 2022, we have lowered the principal value of our debt and finance leases by more than $1,000,000,000 and we've also repaid $277,500,000 of deferred leases. This brings the total debt that we reduced over the period to $1,340,000,000 These actions have been made possible by our ability to raise equity capital, which has been essential to our survival and has undeniably strengthened our balance sheet and positioned the company to capitalize on future growth opportunities as the film exhibition industry recovers.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

The outlook for the industry box office in 2025 and 2026 appears to be increasingly promising and we are confident that the strategic and operational actions that we have taken and will continue to take position us very well for the future. And now, I'll hand the webcast back over to Adam.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Thank you, Sean.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

On our last quarter's call, we introduced the notion that after four grueling post pandemic years, it was finally time for AMC to get off our heels defensively and instead to play on offense once again. So, on this call, I want to give you an update of the activity already underway for AMC to go on offense, specifically AMC's go plan, GO, go on offense, set in motion a series of initiatives designed to leverage our strengths and accelerate our recovery, aligning with our expectations for a rising and more consistent box office over the next several years to come, it makes sense to try to grow your revenues when revenues are in fact growing. With a central theme of improving the guest experience inside our theaters, the AMC GO plan is multi dimensional and designed to drive additional profitable attendance to our theaters, to AMC in The U. S. And Odeon abroad.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

With our industry leading per patron metrics, which as you know, hit record levels in 2024, What's so important about this drive to increase and bolster our attendance is that every incremental guest in our theaters is not only valued, but it drives a huge percentage of their incremental revenue down to the EBITDA line. As more capital becomes available to AMC to invest in growth initiatives, one key aspect of the AMC GO plan is to add more premium experiences. Capitalizing on the fact that AMC today is already without question the global leader in offering premium large format screens. I can say to you today that in calendar year twenty twenty five and again in calendar year twenty twenty six, We currently expect to upgrade more of our IMAX auditoriums to the very popular IMAX with laser. We intend to add more Dolby Cinema screens.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

We intend to add more Prime and AMC screens, our so called house brand PLF format. We also intend to bring our successful XL or extra large screen concept that was launched in Europe last year to The United States. We would hope to introduce between 5,100 XL screens in The United States this year and add another 150 XL screens in addition in 2026. Our rollout of laser and AMC screens with their brighter and sharper picture on the screen resulting from laser projection continues at pace. It has already been installed in about one third of our U.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

S. Screens and we will be adding a great number more of laser projections to AMC Theatres, both in 2025 and in 2026. Another part of the AMC GO plan is to improve the seating comfort and appeal at more of our theaters, especially at ones that are already quite profitable and well attended. Recent luxurious seat replacements at AMC Burbank sixteen in Los Angeles, along with AMC Lincoln Square thirteen and AMC Empire twenty five in Manhattan have led to dramatically improved guest satisfaction scores and importantly for us, high theater gross seats. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, on a Saturday night, out of the five hundred and fiftieth theaters in The entire United States under the AMC brand, our three highest grossing theaters were Burbank, Lincoln Square and Empire, the very three theaters where we installed this new luxurious leathery seat that's wider, there's more padding, that rocks and in many cases has more legroom.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Knowing that this has been a successful initiative to date, we've already identified several handfuls of important theaters, theaters that are profitable and well attended, that should produce even higher financial returns for AMC if we can introduce this new seat type in those locations. We aim to deploy here, again, as soon as growth capital becomes available to us such that we can invest to upgrade these theaters. Additionally, with respect to AMC's GO plan, it also includes our focusing on several exciting new innovations in our loyalty, subscription and other marketing programs. To that end, on January 1, just several weeks ago, AMC launched our fourth and newest AMC Stubs loyalty program tier called Premier Go. It offers heightened program benefits, it's free, and this loyalty tier is designed specifically to incentivize our current AMC Stubs insider tier members who also enjoy free memberships to patronize AMC more to buy more movie tickets in our theaters and buy more food and beverage at our theaters.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Premier gross status is earned when a consumer sees at least eight movies at AMC in a year or earns at least 5,000 AMC Stubs points in a calendar year. We started on 01/01/2025, with more than 300,000 moviegoers already enrolled in the Premiere Go tier as members because we base their membership on their purchase history with AMC last year in 2024. We have also announced that we will be enhancing other benefits for our AMC Stubs members, especially those in our A List program. In this case, we intend to give more value to our most avid moviegoers. Moviegoers who average somewhere between twenty four and thirty two visits per year at AMC Theatres in The United States.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

How are we improving A List? First, we have increased the weekly movie limit for A List members. They can now watch up to four movies per week, up from the current three when the new A List innovations take effect on May 7. Second, to encourage more family moving going, we will be lowering the minimum age to sign up for A List from the current 16 to 13. Why do we pick 16 previously?

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Because to prevent fraud, we needed a state issued ID, which takes us to the third improvement to A List. To make A List membership verification easier and faster at our theaters, A Listers on beginning May 7 will be able to upload their own photos to their AMC Subs profile and use this in app photo of themselves, the members, in lieu of having to show a state issued ID. That's true with children as well as adults, so we can lower the age to 13 and we think more parents are going to cause more of their children to sign up in the program. In addition on A List, we have already announced that in May, we will launch a wholly new AMC A List Classic program, a subscription program that provides for the watching of one movie a week, not four movies a week or three, but one movie a week and not get into all of our theaters only at our AMC classic theaters. But in doing so with these limitations, we have the opportunity to offer this AMC Classic tier at a significantly reduced monthly subscription price.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

A List continues to be one of the most successful programs that AMC has ever introduced, and we think it will get better still with these changes coming soon. We have much more in store for our moviegoing guests in the guise of more marketing programs designed to stimulate attendance, but we're not ready to announce them yet today. So look for more important marketing initiative announcements coming from AMC to be publicly announced in the coming months. For all to talk about pursuing growth initiatives, because in so doing, we can drive increased financial returns and boost the value of the company for the benefit of our shareholders, I think it's imperative that I add that it is also of paramount importance to AMC and nothing has changed that continuing to focus on strengthening the balance sheet to reduce our debt, to lengthen maturities, to keep our cash reserves robust remains an extremely important objective for this company. The fact that we strengthened our balance sheet over the past several years is why we are still here and we will not take our eye off the ball.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

At the same time, we also believe there is enormous opportunity to grow our EBITDA, to improve our financial returns, to benefit our shareholders, if and as when we have access to more growth capital. That pretty much concludes the comments about the fourth quarter and some of the activity underway as a company. But before I close this call and move to questions, I'd like to close with just a special message to our retail shareholders, many of whom, thousands of whom will be listening to this webcast. I want you to know that what I've said to you for years now remains true. Every day I continue to actively read your social media commentary as it gives me a great sense of your views and lets me read the room, so to speak.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Sadly, there's so much false information floating around AMC on social media. Similarly, there are crackpot conspiracy theorists, like one after another that seem to delight in speaking foolishly about AMC. So, from the horse's mouth, here's some straight talk. Please know that I am acutely aware of AMC share price decline over the past three years, and I am acutely aware of the pain that has caused for many of you. I am after all myself, I believe the largest single individual AMC shareholder.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

I've been increasing my share position since 2021 And I am after all, or was it January 22, was it? What was my last sale? I forgot. January 21? January '20 '2.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

January '20 '2. Three years ago, right. Yes, three years ago. I haven't sold a share in three years. Instead, I've increased my share position and therefore, a share price decline that hurts you, hurts me too.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

My interests are completely and directly aligned with yours. They are not aligned with anyone else other than you, and that is exactly as it should be. So think about all that I'm seeing what you write and say, here are two key thoughts. First, do not allow yourself to be distracted. Our biggest problem is not various market practices that some of you seem to detest.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Instead, quite simply, it's that the movie industry and the movie theater industry has been in crisis for more than four long years. Domestic industry wide movie theater attendance, believe it or not, is still down almost 40% from full year 2019 levels. That is a fact. And the fact that attendance is down means our ticket revenues will be stressed. The fact that attendance is down means that we will be able to sell food and drink and merchandise to fewer people.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

That is the problem at AMC. But I tell you that not as a bearer of bad news, but as a harbinger of good news to come, because fortunately, as we have implemented one new idea after another, and as we have made our company more efficient over the past several years, AMC's profit per patron numbers are way, way up. We often see our profit per patron being as much as 50% higher than it was in pre pandemic levels. So what that means is that for success, AMC does need the box office to be higher than it was in 2024, but we really do not need it to climb all the way back up to 2019 levels. And even more fortunately than that, the box office finally looks to be growing significantly and materially again.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

We are absolutely convinced based on our expertise and our knowledge of what's coming that the box office industry wide box office in 2025 will be bigger than 2024 and that the box office in 2026 will be bigger than that of 2025. But of course, no one has a perfect crystal ball. That's our view, that's our belief as of today, only time will tell. The second thought I wanted to share is that some of you rail about the dilution of our stock or with a perfect hindsight that comes from being able to Monday morning quarterback the timing of the sale of our stock. Please note that we have only raised capital if the company truly and absolutely needed that cash to be in the drawer.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Remember that many of our competitors, both big ones and small ones, both the most important ones and the most unimportant ones, so many movie theater chains have been forced into bankruptcy in the last four years because they ran out of cash, not AMC. I repeat, not AMC. We stayed strong. We stayed alive. We stayed healthy.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

We stayed on a path towards recovery because of the actions that we took to bring cash in the door. Having said that though, here is a pledge that I am making to you today. There will be no more cash raised from the sale of common stock in calendar year 2025 unless we first take that matter of authorizing more common shares to you, our shareholders, for you to vote and help us make such a decision. In summary, the entire team at AMC is absolutely committed to do all that we can to grow our revenues and to grow our adjusted EBITDA. We are constantly striving to enhance the value of our business, which after all is your company.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

AMC is the acknowledged leader of this industry. We have kept AMC alive and relatively strong in very troubled times, and we will continue to do everything humanly possible to keep AMC moving forward. And to that end, we just delivered one hell of a fourth quarter of twenty twenty four. Sean, let's move to questions both from our securities analysts and from our retail shareholders.

[Operator]

Thank you. We're now conducting a question and answer session. Our first question is coming from Chad Boyden from Macquarie. Your line is now live.

[Analyst]

On for Chad. Thanks for taking our question.

[Analyst]

So on the AMC Go plan, if the number of wide release films and the box office growth materializes as you expect, is that when CapEx will rise to the $375,000,000 or so annual level implied by the high end of the CapEx range? Or is there anything else you can share in terms of further visibility for the magnitude or cadence of the CapEx deployment? Thank you.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

I'm happy to respond, Chad. Our CapEx budget is going to stay around $200,000,000 plus or minus a little change until such time as we have access to growth capital. And how we have access to growth capital is something that we are sorting through right now. There are a number of really creative ideas in place inside the company where we might be able to get third parties to finance some of our growth. There are other opportunities that are so obvious.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

The returns on some of these growth initiatives is so high that we'd love to be able to convince people to trust us with more growth capital. But until we have access to growth capital, we're going to keep CapEx tightly constrained. The time will come when we can grow it, but you'll know it way in advance. We will flag it in advance. We're not going to surprise you with big CapEx expenditures without having told you prior to doing so.

[Analyst]

Understood. Appreciate that. As a quick follow-up, IMAX recently announced a deal for the movie Narnia to have an exclusive theatrical run, and I think this is a film that otherwise would have gone direct to streaming. So just curious to hear your thoughts and your views on the potential for more deals like this to come through and how you see the dynamic between streaming and theaters evolving from here? Thanks.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

So there are streamers and then there are streamers. There are some streamers who have actively embraced theatrical releases. Apple and Amazon come to mind. And we've had superb meetings and conversations with both Apple and Amazon. We're highly encouraged, for example, that Amazon, which is a combination of Amazon and the old MGM, Now it's just about a week or two ago that they were staffing up and boosting their distribution personnel with significant numbers because they would like to dramatically increase the number of films that Amazon is releasing.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Doubling even potentially tripling, we're not quite tripling, but more than doubling the potential releases coming out of the Amazon sphere. Similarly, Apple is so excited about the movie F1, which is coming out in June, which they're hopeful and we're hopeful is going to be a major blockbuster, gangbuster hit. It's directed by Joe Kaczynski, the Director of Maverick. I believe it stars Brad Pitt. Apple is behind it completely, being distributed in The U.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

S. By Warner Brothers is behind it completely. AMC is behind it completely. So the notion that some of these streaming services might actually embrace the Apple releases is something that's quite exciting to us. I think that one of the, as the industry experimented with all sorts of different release patterns post COVID, a general consensus has emerged in Hollywood, not by all, but by most, that the most successful movies on streaming platforms are those that go to theaters first.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And those movies that have a great theatrical release often wind up being the most watched movies on streaming services. Not all, you notice that there is another major streaming service that I talked about, that I did not talk about yet, that is not as enthusiastically embracing theaters, that being Netflix. But we continue to reach out to Netflix. And right now, Narnia is scheduled to play in on AMC's IMAX screens. We would love to be able to convince Netflix that their embracing theatrical releases is good for them.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

They did it with Glass Onion. They are doing it with Narnia. We'll see where this goes. Narnia is still two years away. But having said all that, I've always believed that the world is of the consumers' appetite for entertainment and amusement is so voracious that it can support both the robust theatrical industry and robust streaming industry side by side.

[Analyst]

That's perfect. Thanks, Adam, and congrats on a great quarter.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'll turn the call over to management for our retail investor questions at this time.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

Thank you. So the first question that we have is about our merchandise and movie themed collectible items and how that is going and if we can give the investors an update on that.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Thank you, Sean.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

One of the things I said in my prepared remarks was that AMC has been implementing one new idea after another. And not all ideas work, but a lot of them have. And one of them that clearly has worked and worked unbelievably well is movie themed merchandise. Three years ago it's working by the way, not only in The United States, but also in Europe. 3 Years ago, we didn't sell any movie theater merchandise in our theaters, none, none.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

In calendar year 2024, we sold about $65,000,000 of movie theater merchandise from nothing three years earlier. And the profit margin on this movie theater merchandise, not exactly, but it's in the neighborhood of 50%. These are good margins, great margins if you are in Shark Tank. These are really good margins and we're selling a lot of merchandise. And one of my goals for 2025 is to see what we can't do to significantly increase our merchandise sales for the fourth year in a row.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And it's actually it should actually be easier to accomplish than it may sound because, number one, we've been increasing the number of movies that we do this movie theme merchandise for. It started out that we're only doing a handful of these a year. And now seemingly every couple of weeks, we have a new movie theme product coming out. But people didn't want to get stuck with excess inventory. So especially in the early phase of this merchandise ordering, you got to buy the merchandise from where it's manufactured like nine months before the movie comes out.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

So we would place orders for merchandise and then have to get it to hundreds and hundreds of retail locations around the country. And there was no ability to increase the supply of fast selling items, whatever you ordered nine months before, once it's sold out, you were sold out. We were finding ourselves in 2024, often selling out on Friday or Saturday of opening weekend of everything that we'd ordered for a movie. And when I say everything, I don't mean small quantities. I mean, quantities in the hundreds of thousands of items.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And so one of the things that we've decided to do for 2025 is to increase the quantity of the merchandise that we order in advance, so that we have more supply in our theaters, so that we don't sell out on Friday or Saturday, that maybe we have supply through Sunday or maybe we have supply through the second weekend. But I do believe that our ability to continue to drive our merchandise business is one where we want to be able to succeed handily. And talking about Before you go on this one. And your question was on movie themed merchandising, but something about movie themes. We also have movie themed drinks now in our bars. And just like we have more and we used to have a few a year, but just like we have more and more movie scene merchandise in our theaters, we now have more and more movie scene drinks. And often they are our most successful item at the bar.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And so we're also looking at ways, including new beverage pouring technologies, where we can increase the number of movie themed drinks that we have available, because people clearly are buying them. And remember how important food and beverage numbers are to us. Our food and beverage numbers for the fourth quarter were the highest they've ever been in AMC's one hundred and five year history. So this notion of being creative and imaginative and innovative in what we sell to our guests in our theaters is of crucial importance because it drives increased profitability.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

And talking about food and ancillary revenue, there's a question about popcorn. How is our popcorn?

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

So

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

I've got to say, I'm so proud of what we've done in taking what's called AMC Perfectly Popcorn into the home. This started only not even two years ago, twenty two months ago, I believe. When we launched AMC Perfectly Popcorn at 2,600, I think, close to it, plus or minus 100 Walmart locations in The United States for our ready to eat popcorn and about 500 Walmart locations for our microwavable popcorn. Our believe it or not, as a movie theater company, we have chefs, both for our dine in theaters and even for our concession stands. And our chefs worked extremely hard and almost for a year developing the recipe for the home popcorn line, so that it would taste like theatrical popcorn that you get in our theaters, if you made it yourself at home or ate it yourself at home.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And they succeeded. Fast forward twenty four months, in calendar year 2024, our popcorn sales doubled compared to 2023. What's more, the distribution of our store counts greatly increased. In 2024, we added Kroger and Publix and Meijer. For 2025, we've added what's called associated grocers, which wholesales food products to regional and local markets and smaller chains around the country.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

As a result of all that, our home popcorn line was launched in round numbers 2,500 stores just two years ago. By the end of next month, we'll be in 11,000 retail stores in The United States. And I'm especially pleased, Walmart is such an important player in the grocery space. And I'm just so pleased that Walmart informed us a couple of months back that they were going to more than quintuple the number of Walmart stores carrying our microwavable popcorn line. So I think we went from 500 Walmart stores carrying the microwavable line to 2,700 by the April.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

This is all quite encouraging. It's very hard to launch a consumer product in The United States and do so profitably. And I believe where we are now is cumulatively, our perfectly popular line cumulatively is profitable and currently profitable. And we are highly confident that it will continue to grow in sales as we go forward. We've already established, we're one of the best sellers in the popcorn category.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And by the way, we just launched a new flavor, cinnamon butter, for those of you who like it slightly sweet. Anyway, I think popcorn has been a smashing success and more to come.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

Question about our studio partners and windows. Do you see any opportunities to negotiate longer windows for theatrical movie releases and how might that impact the business?

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

I sure hope that we can introduce longer windows, because I think that the current industry experiment on windows has failed. Just a little history for those who don't know. Prior to COVID, in The United States, it varies by country outside The United States, but in The United States, movies typically do not get to the home until seventy four days after initial theatrical release. The industry consent then COVID came and everybody experimented with all sorts of everything. Movies were going to the home, same day they were being taken to theaters.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

They were being taken at all sorts of different dates. Big movies, maybe a little slower, but not so big movies going to the home faster. The end result of all of that, and it's not all because of windows, but if you look at our industry's attendance across the entire industry, it's still 40% below pre pandemic levels, not quite 40%. The last number I saw was 38%. It's still almost 40% below pre pandemic levels.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

That has stressed the EBITDA generation of theatres, that has stressed the profitability of theatres, that has stressed the share prices of theatres, and that's a problem for theatres. Now, as I said, windows was not the only problem. There were other issues, including that Hollywood was releasing fewer titles. That appears to be changing. Hollywood is releasing more titles.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

But as the industry experimented with a whole bunch of variety of options, what the industry coalesced around was that the old seventy four day window become a forty five day window. So the movies would go to the home about six or seven weeks after they hit theaters, not ten or eleven weeks after they hit theaters. And some movies have gone to the home even quicker, thirty days and seventeen days. In our view, seventeen days and thirty days are too short. And we would like to convince all the major studios that they should keep movies in theaters longer.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And this is a conversation that is front and center live. I was in the office of the CEO of one of the major five studios just two weeks ago. And he told me how important it was to reestablish the forty five day window as being Sacrosanct. I was with the President of Distribution of another major studio, one of the very largest, one of the most important, who was bragging to me that whereas other studios were keeping their movies in theaters only forty five days before going to the home, But that studio was taking their big movies to the home only sixty days after the movies were released theatrically. So these conversations are live right now between theater chains and studios.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

We believe that theater chains would generate more money if windows were longer, but we also believe that studios would generate more money if windows were longer. Why? Because they would gross more in theaters and the more successful the run-in theaters, the more successful a run they're going to have when they finally take movies to the home. So watch this space. We'll continue to see what we can do to convince the industry that it should be firm around this forty five day number.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And once we get there, maybe we can extend it to sixty days or seventy four days like it was pre pandemic. We will all learn together, but this is a very live injury debate topic right now.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

Thanks, Adam. And I think we've got time just for one more question, Gaff, which is very related to what you were just talking about. When you think about the box office, how are you thinking about when the industry might reach more of a steady state level and return closer to pre pandemic top of levels?

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

So take you all back in time. Prior to the pandemic, for five years in a row, the industry box office was between $11,000,000,000 and $12,000,000,000 This is the so called domestic industry box office. This is all theaters, all movie theater companies, all chains, all locations in The United States and Canada, the basic measure of our industry, for five years in a row, it's between $11,000,000,000 and $12,000,000,000 We're eleven years in a row, it's between $10,000,000,000 and $12,000,000,000 COVID comes since $2,000,000,000 That was 2020. Then in 2021, it was $4,500,000,000 Then in 2022, it was $7,500,000,000 Then in 2023, if you exclude the Taylor Swift and Beyonce movies, which we sort of created out of thin air at the last second, which were not expected did not come from a studio and were not expected to be movies in theaters. The industry box office was like $8,700,000,000 or $8,800,000,000 in 2023 and it was $8,750,000,000 in 2024.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

So the box office was flat. It had been high for a decade, went to next to nothing with COVID. It started rising again. It flattened out in 2023 and 2024. Why did it flatten out in 2024?

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

Because of five months of actors and writers strikes that crippled production of movies and decreased the number of film releases in the first five months of 2024. But that's the past. Let's look at the future. I said in my prepared remarks, we think the number of wide release films is going to increase in 2025 over 2024. We have studiously looked at this movie theater slate of the titles that are coming out.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

And it's one blockbuster film after another blockbuster film after another blockbuster film after another blockbuster film. We really do believe, and as I said, nobody's crystal ball is perfect, but we really do believe that the box office will be in 2025, will be somewhere between $500,000,000 and $1,000,000,000 more in 2025 than it was in 2024. And we looked at the movie slate in 2026 and it also was wonderful. So we think that the box office in 2026 is going to be bigger again than it was in 2025. So honestly, I hope that the movie theater industry box office does not peak and go to a steady state.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

What I'm seeing is that the industry box office is actually growing and growing significantly. It's going to grow big in 'twenty five over 'twenty four, we hope. Nothing is it's only February. We'll all find out by the end of the year. But we're pretty sure that the box office will be a lot bigger in 'twenty five than it is in 'twenty four, a lot bigger in 'twenty six than 'twenty five.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

I would hope that it's bigger in 'twenty seven than it is still in 'twenty six. Success breeds success. The more movie going there is, the more profitable movies are. The more profitable movies are, the more that studios will want to make more movies. The more movies that studios make, the bigger the box office becomes.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

So, there you go. That's the circular loop on the road to recovery.

[Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO at AMC Entertainment]

And I think that's all the questions we have time for today.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

So, everybody, thank you very much. We had a very good quarter. The year 2024 was very good if you only look at the second six months of the year. But the second six months of the year looks to us to be a harbinger of what's coming in 2025 and again in 2026. So I have one simple request.

[Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO at AMC Entertainment]

I don't know what you're doing this weekend, but why don't you go to a movie theater and go catch a movie. And when you do, we'd be happy to welcome you at AMC. Or if you're in Europe, Odeon. Or if you're in The Middle East, AMC Cinemas. Thank you everybody for listening. Thank you for joining us today.

[Operator]

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.

Participants

Executives

• John Merriwether, VP, Capital Markets and IR
• Adam Aron, Chairman, President & CEO
• Sean Goodman, EVP & CFO

Analysts

• Analyst