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Starting Wednesday July 9 AMC Theatres’ AMC Stubs members can take advantage of the chain’s 50% off Wednesdays promotion.

As Adam Aron, AMC chairman and CEO, put it when announcing the first quarter results for the largest theater chain in the U.S., “Make no mistake, AMC is playing on offense again.”

But in one important regard, it is moviegoers who should take offense: last week AMC’s deal with National CineMedia (NCM) — whose tagline is “We Get Audiences” — kicked in.

That NCM deal means that Stubs members better take advantage of the free large popcorn refill that comes with their promotion because there are now more ads — thanks to NCM, which provides “the largest cinema advertising platform in the country.”

The problem for cinema owners is the vicious cycle of fewer audience members, lower profits, more ads to make up for the lost revenue leading to a worse experience and then fewer audience members. So, even as AMC hopes it will garner more money through a quasi-captive pre-movie audience by subjecting it to more advertising messages, it is worth noting that Aron has arguably been a good steward of moviegoing. At least, comparatively speaking.

When he announced the July 9 program in mid-May, Aron said, “Realistically, we could not afford to have made this change to our ticket pricing strategy until the box office showed true signs of sustained recovery. But in April and now in May, the box office has been booming, and the remainder of 2025 appears poised to continue that upward box office trend.”

April had releases including A Minecraft Movie, which had the biggest opening of a movie based on a game, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which did remarkably well financially (>$364-million worldwide) and critically (the word “Oscar” is being used).

May saw the releases of Lilo & Stitch, Thunderbolts* and Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, all of which brought movie goers into theaters.

Aron knew that when July arrived there would be Jurassic World: Rebirth, Superman, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, all the sorts of movies that lend themselves to viewing on a large screen.

Perhaps, Aron hopes, he can turn these blockbusters into a virtuous cycle of increasing audience, better experience, increased movie attendance.

However, before you reach for your ad-enduring popcorn, you should note that “50% Off Wednesdays” excludes “certain movies and holiday time periods may be excluded.”

So viewers may have to wait a bit to see the big one.

Aron also said, “The introduction of Discount Tuesdays several years ago has turned Tuesday into one of the best attended days of the week, in part because there is a segment of the moviegoing audience who looks first for a great value in their moviegoing.”

Like the Wednesday program, Discount Tuesdays is open to AMC Stubs members — of which there are some 36 million. Not only are there discounts on tickets, but a combo pack at concessions.

Aron’s “Realistically, we could not afford to have made this change” is probably more telling than you might think.

Although he certainly wants to get people in seats, as CEO he’s looking at the stock price of AMC Entertainment Holdings which has never really recovered from COVID.

Back in June 2021, when things started opening up and all U.S. adults had the opportunity to be vaccinated against COVID, the company’s stock price hit a record high $625.50, although that had a lot to do with the whole meme stock rally (some people didn’t know what to do with their stimulus checks).

In 2022 the stock price ended at $40.70. In 2023 it finished at $6.12. In 2024 it ended the year at $3.98.

And it has been bouncing around that price so far this year.

AMC is the largest theater chain in the U.S., followed by Regal Cinemas and Cinemark Theatres. Both of those others have already established agreements with NMC and have been providing plenty of commercial messages prior to movies.

It is not that AMC hasn’t had ads. The difference is this is a more programmatic approach to the selling of space. While it has been common for the trailers and the ads running 20 minutes add 50% to that time.

People attending movies in the UK would probably shrug those 30 minutes off.

A recent story in Sky News surveyed chains in the UK and found that those going to the Cineworld chain can watch as many as 45 minutes of ads and trailers before the movie.

A question is whether people actually watch the ads.

Some might reckon that they can simply ignore the listed time for the film and arrive 20 minutes later, which (1) may work although there is no guarantee that the opening of the movie will be missed and (2) could cause annoyance to other patrons as one scooches across people to get a seat.

And then there is the notion that people will consult their phones during the ads, thereby defeating the purpose of the advertisers.

But NCM contracted a study to determine the efficiency of ads in movie theaters and determined that compared with both linear and streaming TV, a higher percentage of people watch the ads:

For a 30-second spot, 97% of the people in the theater watched the ad and of that number, the average amount of time spent watching was 21.5 seconds. That is calculated into an attention score of 70%.

NCM then calculated that for a comparable ad on linear TV it was 16% and 13% for streaming.

In other words, the somewhat-captive audience in a theater — stuck in front of a giant screen — can provide results for advertisers. (NCM also found that automotive, insurance and pharma are the categories that do especially well in that venue.)

This brings us back to Aron’s “segment of the moviegoing audience who looks first for a great value in their moviegoing.”

If we assume the purpose of going to a movie is to see a movie rather than a Progressive Insurance ad, and if an individual is looking for value, then perhaps that person is going to stay home and buy a Netflix subscription.

The average price of a movie ticket in the U.S. for a standard screen, standard seat, is $16.08.

The base price for ad-free Netflix is $17.99.

According to a recent survey from CivicScience, 10% of U.S. adults go to the movies alone while 36% prefer going with another person (30% of people don’t go to the movies at all).

So for 36% the amount spent at a movie theater is $32.16. Someone could get a Netflix Standard with Ads subscription for $7.99 per month and invite everyone they know to watch a movie on a large home screen and be financially way ahead of the game — assuming they’re looking for “a great value” in movie watching.

Won’t AMC’s advertising approach result in “We Lose Audiences,” at least for a percentage of viewers who figure that when they pony up money for a ticket they’ll see a few trailers and maybe an ad or two for Coke and the like rather than an array of ads that they see when at home watching “The Rookie” or “NCIS”?

After all, even though the screen may be smaller and the feature not as up to date as what can’ be seen at the local AMC, Netflix does have some 6,800 features on offer. And the popcorn is a hell of a lot cheaper, Stubs notwithstanding.