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AMC seeing slow but steady recovery in foot traffic, new data shows

Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal breaks down the latest box office expectations as new data points to improvement in AMC's recovery

Video transcript

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ZACK GUZMAN: Back to "Yahoo Finance Live." We've talked a lot about AMC in the past couple of weeks here as the stock surged more than 340% in the last month. And we want to take a look at whether or not the actual traffic at AMC is backing any of those moves up. And for more on that, I want to bring I'm Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal, who has the latest data there. Ali.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yeah, Zack, I mean, you mentioned the meme trade, and that is absolutely true. Year to date the stock is up over 3,000% right now. It's absolutely mind-boggling. But AMC has seemed to embrace the retail investor, offering things like free popcorn, special screenings. But there has been a question about the fundamentals.

So foot traffic analytics platform, placer.ai, went and observed these foot traffic patterns at AMC locations throughout the United States. And when we look at month over month, visits in May were down 68.5% when compared to May 2019, a slight improvement from April when the visit gap stood at 70%. So you can see that it's a very slow recovery, clearly still a long way to go. But progress is being made, with May coming in as the strongest showing for AMC since the pandemic began.

And when we look specifically to Memorial Day weekend, which is often viewed as the official start of the summer blockbuster season, visits were down 49% and 46% compared to Memorial Day weekend 2019 and 2018 respectively. placer.ai also noted that theaters saw a drop-off in foot traffic as the weekend continued, which usually doesn't happen, especially with holiday weekends, but that's just another example of those changing consumer behaviors at the movies. Still, AMC outperforming competitors like Regal Cinemas during that long weekend, really asserting itself as one of the strongest theater chains in the United States.

And then I want to Zoom in and focus more specifically at week over week, because you'll see there that the week of May 31, visits were down just 50.4% when compared to that same week in 2019. This is by far the strongest turnout AMC has seen since the pandemic started. So it appears that traffic is picking up and that momentum did carry over into June. We got a few new titles out there, such as "In the Heights." And although that film did underperform at the box office, it was still something new for consumers to see.

Because that really has been an issue in 2021. There just hasn't been a lot of new movies. And if you don't have any new titles out there, what's the reason to leave your couch and go to the theater? So that's something that hopefully will continue to pick up as the year continues.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, Ali, it does feel like all of the data is kind of pointing in the right direction, even if the return to the theaters have been a little slower. When you look at the content pipeline for the rest of the year, what does that mean for the overall box office?

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Well, we have a very strong content pipeline the rest of the summer. "Top Gun Maverick," I'm personally really excited to see that, along with "Black Widow." But if you look at the second half of the year, that's really where a lot of those bigger name titles are going to come out. We have the Bond movie, the final one for Daniel Craig. "Venom 2" due, those titles are going to drive momentum and really convince people to go to the theater.

Also some issues that are plaguing chains right now, there are a lot of theaters that are shut down still, or at least are operating at limited capacity. And the hope is that when we get to the fall, that is going to start to correct itself. So more movies, more of a re-opening trend that we're going to hopefully see in the fall that should help move things along. Of course, things aren't going to be the way that they were. We had that shortened 45-day theatrical release. We have a lot of films that are still experiencing that hybrid release.

And although I don't think that's going to mean the death of theater chains, it's going to be different. And that's what all of these theater companies are grappling with, is how to move forward when you can't really look back anymore. COVID-19 has changed a lot of industries and the box office is no exception. Personally for me, I'm going to keep going to the theater. I like going to the movies. Popcorn, it's the only time I get a Coke, so I need to continue to continue that trend. So that's my hope. I'm still going.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, popcorn and the Slurpees out, you got to get on the Slurpee train.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yep, I love a good Slurpee. Move Slurpee.

ZACK GUZMAN: That's what it's all about. But yeah, no, I did not expect Nick Cage and a pig to be the reason to get me back in the theater, but that's what we got on our hands. Ali Canal in this week's Fame report, appreciate that.