AMC Entertainment broke its Labor Day weekend admissions record, thanks in large part to the $90 million raked in by Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” which drew the lion’s share of the two million moviegoers during the four-day weekend from Sept. 2-5, according to a CNBC report.
This is the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that 2021 attendance was higher than the same weekend in 2019.
“This encouraging surge in attendance at AMC signals that as Hollywood releases movies, Americans eagerly want to return to movie theatres again,” said CEO Adam Aron in a statement on Tuesday (Sept. 7).
“Shang-Chi” raked in $71.4 million in ticket sales from Sept. 3-5, the second-highest opening during the coronavirus outbreak, trailing only “Black Widow,” which saw $80 million in sales in July. The $90 million-plus brought in by the new Marvel hero movie is almost triple the previous Labor Day weekend record set by “Halloween” in 2007 ($30.6 million).
Related news: Moviegoers Can Soon Pay for AMC Tickets Using Bitcoin
Last month, Aron announced in an earnings call that the movie theater giant will accept bitcoin for the online payment of movie theater tickets and concession snacks, per Deadline and other media. He added that he expects the chain will be able to accept the world’s most popular digital currency by the end of this year, and that AMC will accept Apple Pay and Google Pay for tickets and snacks.
The world’s largest movie chain has a presence in 953 locations in the U.S., as well as 335 international theaters. AMC was on the verge of bankruptcy last year, but was saved by a group of investors on Reddit. AMC, along with Gamestop, which was also barely surviving at the time, became trendy meme stocks that saved the day for both companies.
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