If you wondered how theater chain AMC (NYSE:AMC) would fare in 2023, well, you weren’t alone. There were some who noted that its APE units were through the roof, a good sign that the cinema had a comeback planned. Others, meanwhile, were convinced that AMC would wind up a crater by the end of the year. Nevertheless, in Tuesday’s trading, AMC was up over 10%, thanks to the success of the latest Marvel extravaganza.
It’s one of the first big movies of 2023: “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” This latest installment of the Marvel “Avengers” series brought in $104 million in its opening weekend. Reports, however, consider the movie “a bit underwhelming.” It certainly helped that there wasn’t much in the way of competition released at the same time. That allowed “Quantumania” to run the table all on its own and become the first major blockbuster event of 2023.
That’s good news at a time when AMC desperately needs it. The next big release will likely be the upcoming “Cocaine Bear,” but that still won’t be out for another three days. Thus, AMC may be able to continue profiting from Ant-Man’s run. But investors aren’t all happy. There’s a class-action suit in the works over AMC’s APE units (NYSE:APE) that could produce a restraining order against the upcoming conversion of APE units to AMC common stock.
AMC trading over the last five days has been volatile enough. For much of that time, AMC stock wavered around the $5.25 mark until blasting up to over $6. It’s given back some of those gains, but it’s still well ahead of where it was five days ago.
