AMC Entertainment is17.83% higheron its plans toreopen nearly all of its California locations this week, startingwith two flagship locations in Los Angeles today.
AMC's Burbank 16 and Century City 15 will reopen this afternoon.
Meanwhile, the remaining 23 movie theaters in Los Angeles County will be back in action on Friday, March 19. And the company plans to open nearly all 56 California locations Friday so long as local approvals are in place.
"To put the magnitude of Los Angeles reopening in perspective, as a movie market, the L.A. DMA is about double the size of the New York City market, which just finished last weekend as the No. 1 DMA in our circuit for box office," says AMC CEO Adam Aron.
Meanwhile, AMC's various rallies and equity raises have resulted in China's Dalian Wanda Group losing majority control, though it continues to be its largest shareholder.
As of October, Wanda held 37.7% of AMC and 64.5% of its voting power, but AMC notes Wanda has now shrunk its stake and voting power to 9.8%.
AMC also indicated in its earnings this week that it had come to an acceptable deal with Warner Bros. in order tokeep exhibiting those films even as they appear simultaneously on HBO Max.