Fans Of AMC's Quotable Nicole Kidman Ad Just Got Some Exciting News

It's like gospel at this point. That opening image of the neon-lit AMC logo reflected upside down in a perfectly evocative puddle of rain. The stilettos enter the frame, breaking the water into waves, and then Nicole Kidman's voice comes in, just as the camera descends on a Spielbergian shot of her gazing upward, lowering her coat hood, and smiling: "We come to this place ... for magic."

For all its noble intentions to remind audiences of the power of the theatrical experience and celebrate the act of seeing movies at the movies, the AMC "We Make Movies Better" ad accidentally became, in and of itself, one of the most memorable pieces of cinema to be experienced by American theatergoers over the past year or so. Something about the earnestness of Billy Ray's text and Kidman's delivery, the sheer drama of the compositions and lighting choices, and the reliable repetition at the start of every single showing of every single movie at an AMC theater gave the ad a life beyond itself. Not only did it become one of the biggest cinephile memes of the year, but its trajectory in the public consciousness — first overbearing annoyance, then ironic laughingstock, then genuinely beloved communal event — mirrored, in a way, the very arc of audiences' gradual post-pandemic re-acclimation to the big screen.

Now, the ad's many jubilant fans have even more reason to rejoice: As tends to be the case with theatrical smash hits, we're getting a sequel.

The writer of the "We Make Movies Better" ad, Billy Ray, is a top-shelf Hollywood scribe whose credits include the screenplays for "The Hunger Games," "Richard Jewell," and the Academy Award-nominated "Captain Phillips," as well as directorial credits on films like 2015's "Secret in Their Eyes." The latter saw him work with Nicole Kidman, and their partnership didn't stop there. When the time came to make the AMC ad, Kidman asked Ray to pen it, as the writer and director recently told Vanity Fair.

In the same interview, Ray revealed that he was contacted by the chairman of AMC to work on a sequel and didn't hesitate to say yes. Better yet, according to Ray, "It's already written." And it should go without saying, but he also confirmed that Kidman will star in the follow-up spot. 

Even though the writing stage is done, Ray is keeping details of the finished product a surprise for fans of the original. "All I can tell you about it is we are not dumb enough to fly in the face of the one we've already done and try to top it," he told Vanity Fair. "So it's a very, very different approach that is a little bit of a wink to the one we've already done."

Considering Ray's own work as a screenwriter — from the true story inspired "Captain Phillips" to "Shattered Glass" to even adult-geared nuances in "The Hunger Games" – has always been marked by a high degree of media savvy, we can't wait to see what his winky take on the internet-breaking glory of Kidman's welcoming speech will look like.