AMC beats revenue estimates as ‘Batman’ drives box-office collection

Reuters AMC Entertainment beat Wall Street expectations for firstquarter revenue on Monday, as the release of bigticket films such as “The Batman” drew crowds to movie halls, driving a surge in boxoffice collections at the theater chain.

After its business was hammered by the pandemic for much of last year, AMC is slowly turning a corner, as a steady stream of new releases such as “Scream” and “Uncharted” attracted 39,000 moviegoers to its theaters in the first quarter, compared with 6,797 a year earlier.

Revenue at the company, which became one of the symbols of a meme stocktrading frenzy last year, rose to 785.7 million in the quarter ended March 31 from 148.3 million a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected revenue of 743.4 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Net loss narrowed to 337.4 million, or 65 cents per share, during the quarter, compared with 567.2 million, or 1.42 per share, a year earlier.

Shares of the company were up 4.6 in extended trading.