AMC’s A-List members now make up 20% of U.S. attendance. Its $4 billion debt is the harder test

Fletcher Williams saw six movies at AMC theaters last month. At full price, that would have run about $150. He paid $29.99.

Williams, 25, is one of more than 1.1 million members of AMC Stubs A-List, the subscription tier that lets moviegoers reserve up to four films a week, including IMAX and Dolby Cinema, for a monthly fee of roughly $24 to $30 depending on the state. As audiences return to theaters in 2026, AMC Entertainment is counting on the program to turn occasional ticket buyers into regulars.

The open question is whether that loyalty can do what a run of hit movies has not yet done: make AMC consistently profitable while it carries roughly $4 billion in debt.

A record quarter after a long way back

The rebound is real. AMC reported $1.60 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2026, up 14.2% from a year earlier and the highest quarterly total in its 106-year history. Worldwide attendance rose 13.5% to 71.3 million.

Admissions brought in $863.1 million, up 13.2%. Food and beverage sales rose 15.3% to $576.1 million. The industry helped: the $2.99 billion domestic box office was the strongest second quarter in seven years, with six films opening above $75 million.

The hole was deep. AMC’s revenue fell 77% in 2020, from $5.47 billion to $1.24 billion, as the pandemic shut theaters. As recently as early 2025, chairman and CEO Adam Aron said the industry’s January-to-March domestic box office was its weakest since 1996, setting aside quarters hit by COVID.

Records........

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