Dj Amc Expects Mixed 2025 Results Amid Sluggish Box Office Growth

By Katherine Hamilton

AMC Entertainment shared a mixed preliminary financial report for fiscal 2025 and said it agreed to a notes deal that will allow it to refinance debt.

The movie-theater chain said Thursday it expects full-year 2025 revenue to be about $4.85 billion, a 4.6% increase from the year before. That would be just above the $4.84 billion analysts are forecasting, according to FactSet.

AMC anticipates its annual loss will widen to $632.4 million, which would be wider than the $585.9 million loss Wall Street expects.

AMC's preliminary results for the fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31, are below expectations. The company anticipates revenue will be about $1.29 billion and net loss will be $127.4 million. Analysts were looking for $1.3 billion in revenue with a loss of $80.9 million.

Chief Executive Adam Aron said industry growth was not what AMC had anticipated, with box office increasing 1.5% year-over-year.

Aron said management is increasingly optimistic heading into 2026, as the first quarter box office is up 9% compared with last year.

AMC also said it agreed to a secured notes deal that will give it flexibility to refinance debt due in 2027. The company agreed with certain holders of its Muvico Senior Secured Notes due 2029, allowing it to refinance a term loan credit agreement and the 12.75% Odeon Senior Secured Notes due in 2027.

AMC plans to publish finalized financial results for the fiscal fourth quarter and full year on Feb. 24.

Write to Katherine Hamilton at katherine.hamilton@wsj.com

By George Glover

When it comes to the streaming wars, investors have tended to see Amazon.com as an afterthought. The company's new documentary about Melania Trump looks unlikely to change that.

"Melania," which captures the first lady's life in the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump's second inauguration, is expected to bring in $2 million to $5 million across 1,500 locations domestically this weekend, according to data from Boxoffice Pro.

At first glance, that's a solid-enough opening weekend for a documentary — but it pales in comparison to what Amazon has spent on "Melania." The online retailer bid $40 million to distribute the film and plans to pour another $35 million into marketing the movie, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Barron's.

The first lady rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday to promote the film, and the president wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday that the movie was a "MUST WATCH" and "selling out, FAST!"

But social-media users have made sure to point out how many opening weekend tickets have gone unsold. Empire 25 in New York City, one of AMC Entertainment's flagship movie theaters, has sold 11 seats for its first screening, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, for instance.

Of course, $75 million is chump change for Amazon, which makes hundreds of billion dollars in revenue a year from both its online sales and Amazon Web Services cloud unit. The Magnificent Seven tech giant is set to report its fourth-quarter earnings next Thursday, and Wall Street analysts are expecting earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of $48.7 billion on total sales of $211.4 billion, according to a FactSet poll.

The Melania budget also isn't much money, considering how big of a business streaming has become. Netflix said last week that it plans to raise its content spending by 10% to $20 billion this year.

Still, if Amazon wants to compete with big dogs like Disney and Netflix in the streaming wars, Jeff Bezos' tech conglomerate might want to continue its push into live sports, which attract bigger audiences with less social-media pushback.

Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com

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