The ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is hitting the entertainment industry extremely hard. Countless studios and production companies are losing substantial amounts of money on a daily basis and theater chains are also taking a hit. In particular, AMC Theaters is really hurting – and understandably so – and it seems they may have to go to drastic measures now to save their business.
The popular chain has been closed for roughly a month, which has resulted in the furloughing of all 600 of its corporate staff. That also includes their CEO, Adam Aron. And with things not looking to get better anytime soon in regards to the coronavirus, it’s going to leave AMC in a very tough position when the time comes to reopen their doors in a few months from now.
In fact, analysts have been predicting for a while that the company will need to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and now we’re hearing reports that AMC Theaters is indeed in talks with bankruptcy lawyers. According to MovieWeb, they’re chatting with Weil, Gotshal & Manges to work through the filing and manage their debt load of $4.9 billion.
Sources close to the company say that AMC Theaters has stopped paying its rent and that they’re also now “at risk of breaching their debt covenants as they burn through cash.” Clearly, they’re in a pretty bad position, and with there being no real end in sight for the pandemic, it’s impossible to tell how things will play out.
For the moment, though, AMC Theaters is just trying to stay afloat and hang in there until they can reopen. But even then, it’ll take a long, long time for society to get back to normal and you can bet that even with theaters back in business, they won’t be pulling in the kind of numbers they were pre-Coronavirus. Not for a long while, at least.
