AMC Might Be Bought Out
Movie theaters, like most businesses these days, are struggling financially due to the coronavirus pandemic. This news is not really new to anybody at this point, but the severity of it is something people may not really know about. Theaters, almost immediately after closing, had to start putting together a plan to present to congress to try and get some kind of bailout. They started losing money the moment they shut their doors and some continued paying employees for as long as they could, but they kept hemorrhaging money with no new revenue coming in whatsoever. With this in mind they had to begin furloughing and laying off employees just to stay in business until they can reopen their doors.
Some states have already started opening up public businesses with heavy restrictions, and among those businesses are theaters with even heavier restrictions. You’d think that even with those restrictions they would be able to find some way of getting their businesses back on track. Theater owners haven’t been all too lucky in that endeavor however because of a loss in consumer confidence due to people being scare to go out to a public place like that, and rightfully so. Many businesses are not following the rules the way they should and it is a problem that could cause an even bigger loss in consumer confidence.
Many theaters have opted to remain closed until most theaters nationwide can be reopened to the public. Some theater owners have made the statement that it is a nationwide business since no new movies will be shown until most theaters can open their doors to the public again. Others have also stated that without new films, they will also have nothing really worth showing to the public. Most theaters nationwide have plans to open up to the public again with restrictions some time this summer in July. The only problem is that most theaters are chain theaters, owned by a handful of parent companies, which are almost going bankrupt if the owners are to be believed.
With their fiscal situations being so bad, chain theaters such as AMC may have no choice but to be bought out by other companies. This is where industry giant Amazon is apparently coming in to play. AMC is the largest theater chain in the world with over 11,000 screens worldwide, so it would only make sense that they are the ones who are losing the most amount of money. With no way to reopen their doors before the summer, Amazon has started considering the idea of purchasing the company as a whole due to it being a potentially easy acquisition. These are just rumors for now, but expect to hear more about this in the near future with AMC possibly becoming a part of Amazon.