AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., Cinemark Holdings Inc. and Cineworld Group PLC’s Regal Cinemas have enjoyed a spike in foot traffic thanks to recent major movie releases, according to analytics company Placer.ai.
“The end of March and beginning of April saw movie theater visits spike, with John Wick: Chapter 4 [released March 24] and The Super Mario Bros. Movie [released April 5] driving traffic to AMC Theatres, Regal Cinemas and Cinemark,” wrote Placer.ai’s marketing content manager Shira Petrack in a report.
Although Memorial Day movie visits did not quite beat last year’s levels, this may have had more to do with the release of box-office hit “Top Gun: Maverick” over Memorial Day weekend 2022, according to Petrack. The Hollywood blockbuster starring Tom Cruise “set an incredibly high bar for Memorial Day 2023,” Petrack wrote.
Related: AMC CEO touts record U.S. food and beverage sales
Nonetheless, Memorial Day 2023 still saw strong foot traffic, according to Placer.ai’s data. “Over the week of Memorial Day, visits remained high throughout the long weekend — Sunday visits were almost as strong as Saturday visits, and Monday visits dipped only slightly compared to the usual dramatic drop,” added Petrack. “This indicates that, despite changes in entertainment consumption over the past couple of years, consumers still see going to the movies as a typical Memorial Day activity.”
Memorial Day was on Monday, May 29, this year. Even with the comparison to 2022’s strong numbers, cinema visits the week of May 22 through 28 this year were only 5% and 2.2% lower than visits in the week of May 23-29, 2022, for AMC
AMC,
and Cinemark
CNK,
respectively, Petrack said. Regal Cinemas’ visits were down 13.2% year-over-year, according to Placer.ai’s data.
Last week AMC CEO Adam Aron said that that the movie-theater chain and meme-stock darling saw record U.S. food and beverage sales per patron last month.
Related: AMC CEO touts record U.S. food and beverage sales
AMC recently reported better-than-expected first-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings. During the first quarter, which ended March 31, food and beverage spending per patron was $6.90 globally and $7.99 in the U.S., up from $6.46 globally and $7.52 in the U.S. in the prior year’s quarter.
Shares of AMC rose 1.4% Monday, outpacing the S&P 500 index’s
SPX,
gain of 0.2%. Cinemark Holdings is down 1.3% and Cineworld
CINE,
is down 3.2%.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
