AMC CEO talks reopening of 100 locations

Movie theater and entertainment chain AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE: AMC) will open 100 locations Thursday and it should be considered a “happy day” after months of “pain and trauma,” AMC CEO Adam Aron said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”

Retro ticket pricing done safely

To mark the reopening of AMC’s U.S. locations, the company is selling movie tickets for a “retro price” of 15 cents. But the company is obviously aware of the potential health risks associated with pricing that is as close to free as possible.

To ensure social distancing measures, AMC will open Thursday at 30% maximum seating capacity, as part of a “Phase 1” re-opening process, the CEO said. The company started planning for a safe reopening as soon as it closed its doors in March and consulted with Clorox executives along with Harvard University faculty with particular expertise in air filtrations.

Some of the new measures introduced to AMC guests include cleaning every theater between each showtime with hard surface disinfectants. Every evening, the theaters will undergo a disinfection procedure with electrostatic sprayers.

“I think dirty movie theaters are something that people have been anxious about for decades,” he said. But not anymore because we simply can’t afford to operate our theaters unless you can eat off the floor.”

AMC employees want their jobs back

All the safety measures in the world could still fall short of convincing people to return to movie theaters after months of staying at home. Some people may have come to realize that the multiple online streaming video platforms combine for enough content to keep them busy for months, if not years. 

Other people are merely questioning the logic of movie theaters opening at a time when schools remain shut and many other businesses are still banned from opening.

To this, Aron responds that AMC is a business that keeps 35,000 people employees around the world, 25,000 of which are in the U.S. These workers, the majority of which are at the lower end of the wage scale, have every right as anyone else to return to their jobs and earn a living.

“They live paycheck to paycheck, they need their jobs back,” he emphasized.

From a societal point of view, movie theaters historically played an important role during rough times, even during the Great Depression, he said. People need to be amused and entertained and given an opportunity to “escape,” even if just for a few hours.

AMC could have opened theaters across many cities and states as early as May but delayed an opening until August to give the public more time to convince the public it is operating responsibly. And whenever consumers decide to revisit a theater, AMC promises to keep them safe.