Cinemas tank following disastrous summer box office in the US
Following the news that last weekend offered up the worst box office results in 16 years for the US, there’s more woe being heaped on the movie business.
America’s biggest cinema chain, AMC, which has over 11,000 screens in over 1000 theatres, has seen its shares drop by a massive 45 percent since the US Memorial Day holiday in May, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Regal Entertainment, also a big player with over 7000 screens across the States, has seen a 28 percent drop in its shares.
Meanwhile, the owners of IMAX have lost 31 percent, while National Cinemedia, which runs the majority of the advertising seen on screen at US cinemas has lost 25 percent of its share price.
It emerged earlier this week that the US box office brought in just $65 million (£50 million) last weekend, the lowest turnout at cinemas since September, 2001, and down 35 percent from the same weekend last year.
And it gets worse…
Movie business analysts Barton Crockett are predicting that overall the US box office in 2017 will have made $2.3 billion, a drop of 21 percent from last year, with studio profits dropping at a worrisome clip.
Paramount – home to the Mission: Impossible movies – is down 27 percent, Disney has suffered a 23 loss (despite boasting many of the biggest movies of the year), and Fox is down 17 percent.
But not all studios appear to be losing money – Warner Bros and Universal are up seven and nine percent respectively, while Lionsgate, the independent studio behind ‘La La Land’ and the ‘John Wick 2’ this year, is up 24 percent.
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