AMC’s Discount Ticket Night Might Jumpstart a Return to Theaters

With the percentage of Americans who’d be comfortable going out to a movie theater rising steadily since late July, AMC may have reason to be cautiously optimistic about its plan to reopen 100 locations on Thursday.

Still, potential theater-goers remain a minority among all Americans (ages 13+) at 22% this week in ongoing CivicScience tracking. Sixty-one percent of Americans still say they won’t go to the movies for at least 6 months — though that figure has been on the decline since late July.

As far as AMC’s limited reopening plan goes, 17% of Americans (13+) said they’re at least somewhat interested in buying movie tickets for the one-day special price of 15¢ on August 20. Another 7% aren’t sure.

Frequent movie-goers (those that go to theaters at least once per month) are driving much of the interest in the reopening day deal:

And somewhat surprisingly, the group that’s likely to take advantage of this 15¢ ticket deal skews high-income.

These potential movie-goers are also more likely to be parents and more likely to live in cities than those who aren’t interested in the low-price ticket deal. Perhaps this group is seeking a cheap escape from being homebound with kids in a densely populated area. 

Looking farther ahead, it appears that those who are comfortable with returning to the theaters now are more interested in action movies and less interested in drama films than those who plan to wait 6 months.

And one’s willingness to return to theaters is, understandably, correlated with how often they typically go to the movies in the first place. Over the past week, 29% of frequent movie-goers said they’d be comfortable with going back to theaters now. Forty-one percent of movie buffs, meanwhile, say they won’t go back for 6 months.

While the number of people who are comfortable with going back to movie theaters remains fairly small, it has been growing steadily for weeks. And, given the strong interest in AMC’s 15¢ ticket deal on August 20 among frequent movie-goers, it looks like this week’s reopening may jumpstart America’s return to theaters.