Barbie & Oppenheimer Lead AMC Theaters To Best Week In 103-Year History

Thanks to the twin successes of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," theater chain AMC surged to its highest-earning week in the company's 103 years of history. Both films were buoyed by the amusing and unlikely Barbenheimer phenomenon, which encouraged moviegoers to see both films. Meanwhile, "Barbie" proved itself to be the blockbuster of the summer, pulling in $824 million at the worldwide box office as of this writing, nearly half of which was earned domestically. All of that added up to a sorely needed week of constant ticket and concessions sales for AMC.

In a statement on Sunday, AMC announced its "best week ever" in terms of admissions revenue occurred from July 21 through 27, setting both a global and domestic record for the company. Additionally, the company claims the weekend of July 20-23 was its busiest weekend since the reopening of theaters after they were shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Crowds surged into packed auditoriums, with the Week 2 momentum of "Barbie" proving particularly groundbreaking.

AMC, in particular, was hit hard by the closures of its theaters during the early months of the pandemic. The company nearly declared bankruptcy before it emerged, puzzlingly, as a "meme stock" in 2021. But just as the light at the end of the tunnel seems brightest, a new shadow has fallen over the film industry.

The massive boost provided to AMC's revenue thanks to "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" may be but a blip on the radar during a lean time for movie theaters. Since reopening after COVID-19 safety measures forced theaters to close in 2020, the public has been slow to resume its moviegoing habits. Even the types of films that drove the box office pre-pandemic, such as those in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, mostly failed to pack auditoriums.

Now that moviegoing seems to have rebounded, the entertainment industry finds itself in the midst of twin strikes from the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. This has led to studios moving back their release schedules and scuttling projects entirely rather than giving in to writers' and actors' demands for better compensation and protections against job-eroding technologies like LLM-based artificial intelligence.

If studios don't come back to the table, the resulting dearth of films at the box office is likely to lead to yet another dry spell for struggling theaters. AMC and other theaters might be riding high on the ticket crop from "Barbie," but another drought looms on the horizon.