What a privilege to host the black tie Royal Performance and World Premiere of Tom Cruise’s new movie Digger, at our Odeon Luxe Leicester Square cinema in London. Attending: William and Catherine, the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Banner headline and article in Variety: Summer Box Office Breaks All-Time Record With $4.67 Billion “Need proof the movies are really, truly back? The summer box office was already the biggest since COVID upended the industry in 2020 — and now the season has become the highest-grossing of all time. Domestic ticket sales from May 1 through Labor Day on Sept. 7 stand at $4.76 billion, according to Rentrak.” variety.com/2026/film/box-of…

More good news about AMC’s business prospects. This new rating of our debt by the prominent ratings agency Fitch meshes with that of Standard & Poor‘s, which upgraded AMC’s debt in July. “RATING ACTION COMMENTARY: Fitch Assigns AMC Entertainment First-Time 'B-‌' IDR; Outlook Positive The rating reflects AMC's leading market position, broad theater footprint, and strong exposure to premium formats, which support attendance, pricing, and operating leverage as the box office recovers. The rating is constrained by negative FCF and a complex capital structure relative to peers. The Positive Outlook reflects Fitch's expectation for continued box office recovery, with performance approaching pre-pandemic levels and AMC's ability to monetize attendance through pricing and concessions, supporting revenue growth and margin expansion.” fitchratings.com/research/co…

August 2026 had the highest industry-wide domestic box office grosses for any month of August since record keeping started 50 years ago. See for yourself: boxofficemojo.com Experts moronically predicting movie theatres were dead? What a total crock of - - - - !

To honor the one and only Dolly Parton. AMC will bring back two of her movies to about 200 of our theatres. Tomorrow through Wednesday. STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989): the acclaimed comedy-drama starring Dolly Parton, Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis and Daryl Hannah.   THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS (1982): the hit musical comedy starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds.

We try so hard to be expert in what we usually do so well, devoted as we are to pleasing hundreds of millions of guests in our theatres each year. Today, though, as Dune 3 tickets went on sale, the crushing volumes briefly slowed or glitched our online ticketing systems. Indeed, AMC experienced extraordinarily high demand, particularly for premium format presentations and for some of our most desired locations. Ticketing traffic across AMC’s website and mobile app reached levels approximately three times higher than what we experienced during the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ticket launch, which itself followed strong advance sales for The Odyssey ticket launch before that. It’s not that our systems totally failed. We have been selling enormous numbers of tickets today, but when any of our customers experience less than our best, it is just not right. It’s a high class problem to have such staggering demand, but even so it is intolerable and inexcusable. It just can not and should not happen, because as AMC is the clear market leader, you deserve better from us. There was much discussion internally ahead of and preparing for the Dune 3 launch. We thought we were ready, but we weren’t. I am told that about $2 million of IT programming resource will let us fully address the issue. Of course, that money has been approved already, and we’ve asked our IT team to move at a whirlwind speed to take whatever steps are needed so that our ticketing systems are — in all situations and in all quantities —again top shelf. If some of you experienced delays or intermittent issues while attempting to purchase tickets today, we encourage you as potential AMC guests to retry your purchase, as inventory remains available at many locations and showtimes. We appreciate our guests’ patience and enthusiasm, and we are very encouraged that so many moviegoers are excited to secure their seats for one of the most anticipated theatrical releases of the year. Dune 3 will open on December 18.

I note that Cinema United, the movie theatre's national trade association in the United States, issued a letter today addressed to both David Ellison, Chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance and to the Honorable Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California, on behalf of the various states who have joined with California.  In the letter, Cinema United called on the two parties to sit together and find a mutually acceptable resolution to Paramount’s plan to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery. Cinema United apparently has come just now to the same conclusion that I came to fully four months ago.  As I have repeatedly said and written since April, a weak movie slate is a far greater threat to movie theatre operators and to moviegoers than is a strong studio.  Of course, I also believe that it is wise to have in hand certain protections that will: assure a sizable number of films, that are well marketed, are shown in theatres first and for a reasonable period of time, along with continued access to film libraries and status quo economic splits between film distributors and film exhibitors. But it has been my experience that Paramount has been willing to make and even guarantee such assurances. Indeed, since April, Paramount to its great credit has been putting those policies into place right now, already.  At this juncture, then, the choice is between the two parties soon reaching an amicable settlement between them, or instead waiting in limbo for at least seven to eight months or more, until the results are known from a trial that is not scheduled to be held until March of next year. Our industry can not wait that long.  In 2026, the box office is finally booming, after six long years of the aftermath first from Covid in 2020 and then from the Hollywood labor strikes in 2023. There is a grave risk that delay now will be another unfortunate or unnecessary disruption to the movie business. At the worst, Paramount and Warner each may be partially paralyzed if they have to wait for this cloud of uncertainty to dissipate. Or at best, they only will be distracted and slowed down from seeking that desired optimal outcome of creating more movies to hit theatre screens in the near and medium term. What’s more, the staggering cost of all the legal wrangling is mind-boggling, and will divert monies that could be going to film makers and which instead will be going to the lawyers representing these warring litigants or to Wall Street arbitragers holding WBD shares.  Business leaders across any and all industries will always say that protracted uncertainty or disruption will be unsettling. Worse, it often sparks unintended consequences that far too frequently produce truly negative developments, sometimes devastatingly bad ones. I wholeheartedly endorse that the two parties, Mr. Ellison of Paramount and Attorney General Bonta of California, along with their respective teams, seriously engage together and immediately solve this conundrum. Now is the time for wisdom, safeguarding affected  constituencies for sure in the process.   If you know your biblical history, I am hoping for a King Solomon to emerge, perhaps both of the key players eventually rising to share together such a vaunted throne.