Just about any indie distributor will tell you that releasing independent films is a hard business and that even great festival discoveries that feel like they should have distributors can have trouble finding homes, screens, or an audience. Numerous players have emerged in recent months and years to seize on what feels like an opportunity in the market to sometimes mixed results. Despite what is a fickle market, AMC Theaters is deciding to go it themselves.
The US’ largest theater chain is launching its own indie distributor called Leawood Films. AMC had an enormous success with the first film it released directly to its theaters, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” which grossed $261 million worldwide, and now it is creating a vehicle to release movies other than ones featuring Taylor Swift. Because if you can put up those numbers, why not do more?
Of course it’s not so easy, but Leawood Films will have some strong pedigree to guide it. Serving as an advisory board are Toby Emmerich, former Chairman, Warner Bros. Pictures Group; Ricky Strauss, former President of Marketing, The Walt Disney Studios; and Kyle Davies, former President of Domestic Distribution, Paramount Pictures and current President of Distribution, Bleecker Street. Davies is exiting his role at Bleecker Street as part of this move.
The company will be focused “primarily on small and medium-sized releases, films that otherwise might have difficulty in securing distribution backing elsewhere,” according to a press release, and it won’t only be doing music or concert docs like “The Eras Tour,” the Beyonce concert doc “Renaissance,” or Swift’s more recent “Release Party of a Showgirl.”
AMC also says it doesn’t see itself supplanting other releases by doing this or taking priority away from its traditional studio partners, but we know of a few distribution executives who are still steamed at what “The Eras Tour” surprise release did to the box office for their films. AMC also says it’s avoiding risk by only picking up completed films or those with full financing already in hand and that it won’t be financing, developing, or producing films itself. That suggests it will have to be pretty active at Sundance and elsewhere in buying product, which of course comes with its own risks and serious costs.
AMC also adds that it hopes to release in theaters beyond its own and that it will give all its movies a 45-day theatrical exclusive window and 90-day window to SVOD, naturally.
The long and short of all of this is it’s a risky business proposal to try and succeed with indie releases where other experienced folks have failed, especially for a company with around $4 billion still in debt and a stock price of 2.64 at time of writing. And it is making this announcement at a time when “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is making its way to being the most successful movie of all time and boosting up all of the exhibition business. We know Leawood won’t be releasing films on that scale.
Though if it gives some underrated festival titles a home and some prominent placement in AMC locations they wouldn’t otherwise have, that’s still a net positive. We’ve applauded Letterboxd for doing at home rentals for some festival titles without distribution, so there’s definitely a need.
It’s also worth noting though that AMC has gone down this road before. It launched Open Road Films as a joint venture with Regal back in 2011, and had some modest hits with films like “The Grey,” “Nightcrawler,” “Chef,” and others. Incredibly, it even won the Best Picture Oscar with “Spotlight,” but AMC sold its stake in 2017. More recently though, the end of the Paramount Decrees has meant that the lines between studio and exhibitor have blurred. Sony Pictures owns Alamo Drafthouse and now the Cinerama Dome, Netflix has bought a few theaters, and now this vertical integration can go the other way too.
For now, AMC did not announce any titles in Leawood Films’ initial slate and said to not expect any until sometime in 2027 or 2028 at the earliest. CEO Adam Aron though was very excited at the news.
“We intend to take a collaborative approach with Leawood Films, and we look forward to working with exhibitors throughout our industry at home and abroad to bring compelling films to audiences everywhere. The movie theatre industry benefits when there are more high-quality films available to theatrical moviegoers, and that is exactly what this initiative is designed to achieve,” Aron said in part.
Aron added: “Ultimately, 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. Through Leawood Films, we believe we can bring meaningful value to filmmakers whose movies might otherwise not get made, or which might not be taken to theatres. We can assure them the availability of movie theatre screens and attractive economics, as well as have them benefit from our relationships across the exhibition industry, our proven marketing capabilities, and our extensive experience connecting theatrical content with moviegoing audiences.”
