AMC Theatres Just Broke Its Own All-Time Record, and 2 Summer Blockbusters Led the Charge

For years, the story around movie theaters was a bleak one. AMC reported a loss of $298.2 million in the same quarter last year, a reminder of how rough the post-pandemic stretch has been for the world’s largest theater chain.

Then 2026 arrived with a stacked slate, and the mood shifted fast. Before this year, AMC’s all-time quarterly revenue record dated back to the second quarter of 2019, a bar that stood for years.

AMC cleared it once already this year. Its second quarter of 2026 reached $1.60 billion, led by ‘Project Hail Mary’ and ‘Michael’. Now the chain has topped itself, and ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ and ‘The Odyssey’ were credited for the new high, with total revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 hitting $1.71 billion, up 31.6% from $1.30 billion a year earlier.

The numbers weren’t just big, they were a surprise to Wall Street. Analysts had expected roughly $1.544 billion, so the $1.711 billion total was a clear beat. AMC also posted net income of $109.3 million, or 13 cents per share, which makes it a second consecutive profitable quarter.

The profit picture looks just as dramatic. Adjusted EBITDA hit a record $347.5 million, up 183.7% year over year, with the margin reaching 20.3% compared with 9.4% in last year’s third quarter. In its earnings release, AMC CEO Adam Aron summed it up simply, saying, “Sometimes short but sweet is the best way to summarize performance,” in comments published in AMC’s earnings release.

The two films at the center of it all were enormous on their own. Third-quarter domestic box office reached $3.05 billion, up 28.6% year over year, and that included $951.8 million for ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ and $619.0 million for ‘The Odyssey’. That’s a lot of tickets, and AMC clearly sold plenty of popcorn alongside them.

Concessions did their part. Admissions revenue grew to $953 million, while concessions revenue rose to $589 million with per-patron spending of $8.85. Aron pointed to loyalty programs, premium large format screens and record per-patron revenue as factors behind the records, which suggests the chain’s strategy of getting people to spend more per visit is paying off.

AMC isn’t the only exhibitor riding the wave. Cinemark reported its best-ever third-quarter revenue and the second-best quarterly total in its history, and Marcus Theatres also posted a record third quarter led by ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘The Odyssey’. Taken together, the results point to an industry-wide rebound rather than a one-company fluke.

The bigger picture is just as striking. Domestic theatrical revenue has already eclipsed $8 billion, a milestone the industry didn’t reach last year until December. For a business that spent years being told it was dying, that’s a hard timeline to argue with.

Aron, for his part, isn’t shy about declaring victory. He said the chain’s second consecutive record quarter means the company has “recovered” from its post-COVID struggles, and added that AMC expects to be cash-flow positive for full-year 2026.

The party may not be over yet. Aron highlighted fourth-quarter anticipation based on strong results for October and the upcoming slate. With 2026 still rolling on, theaters might just have a few more records left to chase.