AMC Entertainment is moving into film distribution, launching a new subsidiary called Leawood Films to supply small and midsized features to theaters that increasingly sit empty between major releases. The announcement came less than a month after AMC reported the highest-revenue weekend in its 106-year history, a juxtaposition that captures the strange state of the exhibition business: money is returning faster than audiences.
On August 3, AMC said more than 10.2 million people visited its theaters and those of its Odeon subsidiary, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey leading the box office. The summer generated $4.76 billion at the North American box office, narrowly surpassing a record set in 2013. But attendance tells a different story. Theaters sold an estimated 470.9 million tickets through the first 30 weeks of this year, down sharply from 747.3 million over the comparable period in 2019. Higher ticket prices, especially for IMAX and premium formats, have masked the decline in foot traffic.
AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron framed Leawood Films as a response to what he called substantial excess capacity in the movie theater industry. «Leawood Films is being created with a straightforward objective, given that substantial excess capacity exists in the movie theatre industry: to bring more movies to theatres,» Aron said in a press release. «Moviegoers consistently demonstrate their appetite for a wide variety of theatrical content, and we believe there are more outstanding films that deserve the opportunity to find audiences on the big screen.» The first Leawood releases are unlikely before 2027 or 2028.
The problem is not a shortage of blockbusters but a shortage of everything else. Cinema United, the theater industry trade group, projects 115 movies will open in at least 2,000 North American locations this year, roughly in line with the 120 that did so in 2019. Yet those releases are not spread evenly through the calendar. This summer had 34 wide releases, compared with 44 in 2019. The old middle of the theatrical business — adult dramas, romantic comedies, R-rated comedies — has largely vanished from major studio slates.
«This isn’t a business that can sustain itself off blockbusters alone,» Daniel Loria, senior vice president of content strategy at the Boxoffice Company, told Fast Company. «That’s a very high-risk proposition.» Loria pointed to Joker: Folie à Deux in 2024 as an example. Distributors stayed away from its release date, assuming it would be a hit, and when it bombed, October was left thin. «Forget a bad weekend,» Loria said. «You’re talking about a bad month. You might be talking about six weeks if something doesn’t connect.»
The decline in midbudget movies predates the pandemic. The Fithian Group, an exhibition consulting firm, found that the number of movies grossing between $50 million and $100 million fell 40% between 2004 and 2019. The home video market that once helped studios recoup costs was disappearing, and studios increasingly poured money into franchises with global potential. COVID shut down production, and the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes stopped it again. Some studios cut output earlier: Fox typically released 12 to 17 movies a year before Disney acquired it in 2019, after which Disney said the core Fox studio would release only five or six annually.
AMC acknowledges its dependence on suppliers over whom it has no control. In its annual filing, the company said it relies on distributors for the films it exhibits. In 2025, seven distributors accounted for approximately 83% of AMC’s U.S. admissions revenue. That concentration leaves theaters exposed when a studio decides to make fewer films, spend more on the biggest ones, or send others to streaming.
Historically, that separation did not exist. Paramount, Loew’s/MGM, Warner Bros., RKO, and Fox produced and distributed movies while owning large theater circuits. The United States v. Paramount Pictures decision in 1948 and the consent decrees that followed forced studios to give up their theaters. «If I’m a distributor, I have many avenues for distribution,» said Ross Melnick, a professor of film and media studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who specializes in theatrical exhibition. «But if I’m a movie theater, I only have one thing I’m trying to do, which is run a movie theater.»
Plenty of the movies major studios have stopped making are still being produced elsewhere, Loria said. Getting them into multiplexes is another matter. Some never find a distributor; others receive little marketing or arrive at the wrong time. «There’s a whole genre and segment of films which just aren’t being produced by the major studios anymore,» Loria said. «That doesn’t mean that they’re not being made.» Leawood Films is AMC’s attempt to bridge that gap — and to keep its screens from sitting empty.