Live in USA
AMC Theatres (often referred to as just AMC and previously known as AMC
Cinemas) is an American movie theater chain owned and operated by AMC
Entertainment, Inc., a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group.
Founded in 1920, AMC has the second-largest share of the American market, behind
Regal Entertainment Group and ahead of Cinemark Theatres. The chain has 346
locations mostly in North America,3 along with 86 more locations in mainland
China, home of its corporate parent.4567 The company's headquarters is in
Leawood, Kansas.
AMC Theatres was founded in 1920 by the Dubinsky Brothers ¨C
Maurice, Edward and Barney ¨C who had been traveling the Midwest performing
melodramas and tent shows with actress Jeanne Eagels. They purchased the Regent
Theatre on 12th Street between Walnut and Grand in downtown Kansas City,
Missouri.8 The Dubinskys eventually changed their name to Durwood and the
company they formed was called Durwood Theatres.
In 1961, Edward's son,
Stanley, took control of Durwood Theatres when his father died. Stanley had
attended Harvard University and served as a navigator in the U.S. Air Force
during World War II. He renamed Durwood Theatres to American Multi-Cinema, Inc.,
and began to apply military management and the insights of management science to
revolutionize the movie theatre industry.9 As he later explained to Variety
magazine, "We needed to define what our company was doing in the (exhibition)
business. My dad wasn't that organized."10 It was structured under the belief
that every customer was a "guest".
In 1963, AMC opened the two-screen Parkway
Twin in a shopping center on Kansas City's Ward Parkway. According to Variety,
Stanley Durwood later claimed "in 1962 he was standing in the lobby of his
600-seat Roxy in Kansas City mulling over its poor grosses when he realized he
could double his box office by adding a second screen and still operate with the
same size staff."11 The industry quickly embraced the concept of the multiplex,
where additional screens meant very little difference in staff and operating
costs but resulted in a significant increase in profits. The concept also
provided more movie choices at one location drawing bigger crowds. It gave
owners the flexibility to show big hits on more screens and less reliance on any
individual film that could turn out as a bust.12
In the 1980s, AMC built and
operated a number of ten-screen multiplex cinemas in the UK, including sites at
locations such as Dudley and Tamworth. These were subsequently bought and taken
over by UCI. In 1995, AMC pioneered the first North American megaplex, a theater
that can accommodate thousands, when it opened the AMC Grand 24 in Dallas, Texas
¨C the first megaplex in the world had been built by European chain Kinepolis in
1988.13 AMC continued to open other megaplex theaters, such as the AMC Hampton
Towne Center 24 in Hampton, Virginia, and the chain's busiest theater in the
country, the AMC Empire 25 theater in New York City, New York, near Times
Square. The largest theaters in the AMC chain have 30 screens, including the AMC
Ontario Mills 30 in Ontario, California and AMC Forum 30 in Sterling Heights,
Michigan.
AMC's megaplexes were a success overseas as well. On December 20,
1996, AMC opened AMC Arr¨¢bida 20 in Portugal. In January 2002, the 16-screen
Great Northern was opened in Manchester, which was later supplemented by the
opening of a 12-screen cinema on the Broadway Plaza site in Birmingham in
October 2003. United Kingdom outlets typically serve a dual function, where in
addition to the normal cinema functions, they also cater to companies' business
conferences which can make use of their projectors for displaying presentations.
Download