AMC Boss Adam Aron on Charging Extra for Blockbusters After ‘The Batman’ and Catering to ‘Ape’ Investors
variety.comRebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterAMC CEO Adam Aron is a rock star to a very specific group of people.Those people, of course, are the 4 million non-professional investors who sent the company’s stock price soaring and currently own 80% of the movie theater chain.
The new shareholders, who rescued the beleaguered chain from bankruptcy during the pandemic, call themselves the “Apes.” (The name is a reference to “The Planet of the Apes,” a movie in which primates overthrow humans.) And to them, Aron is the King Silverback.There’s perhaps nobody better to embrace the chaos than Aron, a Harvard Business School graduate with a flair for showmanship.
He communicates with Apes directly on social media and embraces their ideas, like accepting bitcoin and other crypto payments for tickets and concessions. “There were some pros on Wall Street who looked down on them,” Aron says. “They own our company, so we don’t look down on them.
We look up to them.”Internet frenzy may have saved AMC from impending doom, but there are several challenges that linger, such as stagnant attendance levels and the battle to sell tickets for movies that don’t involve superheroes.
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