Photo via Ajay Suresh/Flickr/Creative Commons
A press release by AMC on July 31 revealed the company had its best financial week in its 103 year history. This was determined “based on admissions revenue from July 21 through July 27” and largely due to the cultural impact of both Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” released on Friday, July 21.
The press release went on, saying that 65 AMC locations across the United States recorded “their highest-ever box office weeks of all time.” The trend continued the following weekend, July 27 – July 30, which produced AMC’s “third busiest weekend globally since reopening in 2020.”
The most recent domestic box office reflects this. From July 28 – July 30, the top five movies pulled in a collective gross of about $188 million, with “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” combining for about $140 million of that total in their second week.
These numbers are positive for movie theaters across the U.S. After struggling through the pandemic, movie theaters are on the rebound, with 2023 already having a better yearly box office than both 2020 and 2021 with about 100 fewer releases. However, the future of 2023 has been called into question with various movie delays due to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) joint strikes.
SZNS MAG 