AMC (AMC) Q1 2022 earnings

Even Spider-Man and Batman’s tagging team can’t do it AMC Entertainment profitable in the first quarter. Shares of the movie theater chain, however, rose more than 3% after hours Monday after the company posted a narrower-than-expected loss for the time period.

AMC has made great strides in recovery since the pandemic closed all locations globally in 2020, but the limited number of new movies in the first three months of the year means ticket numbers Movies are selling less than they did before the pandemic.

However, the recent release of Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Madness Multiverse” opens the door to a flurry of new and hotly-anticipated theatrical films that will boost AMC’s ticket sales in the coming months.

“Our results for the first quarter of 2022 represent AMC’s strongest first quarter in two full years,” Chief Executive Officer Adam Aron said in a statement Monday.

“The cumulative success of last weekend’s ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, ‘The Batman’, ‘Sonic The Hedgehog 2’ and last weekend’s ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’, there’s no doubt about it. on the enduring appeal of theatrical exhibitions,” he said. “When Hollywood releases movies that audiences want to see, people flock to cinemas in large numbers to see movies that are designed to be watched, in theaters, on the big screen.”

The movie theater chain reported a net loss of $337.4 million, or 65 cents a share, compared with a loss of $567.2 million, or $1.42 per share, a year ago.

Excluding items, the company lost 52 cents per share, a narrower loss than the 63 cents analysts expected the company to lose in the quarter, according to a survey from Refinitiv.

Revenue rose to $785.7 million from $148.3 million last year and topped the $743 million that analysts had expected.

AMC ended the quarter with $1.3 billion in available liquidity. Shares closed down 9% on Monday as the broader market sold off.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.