Movie theater giant and meme-stock darling AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) has an extra spring in its step today. Spider-Man: No Way Home crushed box office expectations — and several attendance records. Despite mounting omicron variant concerns, AMC stock is up 1% this morning after Friday’s 20% leap.
What else do you need to know about AMC’s web-slinging stock surge?
Spider-Man closed its opening weekend with a bang. The film claimed the biggest December opening of all time, even breaking post-quarantine domestic attendance numbers three times since Friday. When all was said and done, AMC sold more than 7 million tickets from Thursday’s midnight premiere through Sunday. More than 5 million tickets were from U.S. theaters alone. This marks the first time AMC sold at least 1 million tickets each day through a premiere since October 2019. International numbers also enjoyed new highs, setting a new single-day attendance record on Saturday.
Even trifling through screening options, AMC enjoyed across-the-board boosts from the friendly neighborhood spider. Premium large format (PLF), Dolby Cinema and IMAX each saw elevated screenings this weekend, as it was the biggest weekend ever for AMC Prime.
No Way Home isn’t just unique in its sales numbers: It’s a hyper-modern crypto experiment that may have succeeded. AMC surprised consumers after announcing the giveaway of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for early buyers of the Spider-Man midnight-release showings. There were a number of conditions to be met to receive the NFT, but roughly 86,000 early birds ended up with a digital item.
Will the Spidey Upswing Shift AMC Stock Perspectives?
It’s a bit too early to say whether the NFT promotion served as a boost to movie demand — Spider-Man is practically always a box-office success. Additionally, the film received rave reviews from the jump, earning a 94% aggregate score on review site Rotten Tomatoes. CinemaScore even gave the Marvel film a rare A-plus. As such, the NFT offering clearly didn’t stifle interest in Tom Holland’s latest endeavor, despite it being difficult to definitively attach any causation to the giveaway.
However, will Spider-Man sling the recently stumbling theater industry back into the spotlight? AMC CEO Adam Aron had some uplifting words for the movie business in lieu of the promising numbers.
“Historically, December is one of the biggest months of the year for major blockbuster releases, so to see SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME set a new all-time opening weekend box office record this month is significant not just for AMC, but for the entire theatrical industry. … We commend our friends at Sony Pictures and Marvel on their wonderfully successful movie, which millions of people have already watched at a U.S. AMC theatre in just 4 days.”
The news brings with it a sigh of relief for the recently struggling movie industry. Only time will tell if Spider-Man marks a resurgence for the star-studded business, but prospects are better than ever.
On the date of publication, Shrey Dua did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
