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When AMC Entertainment (NYSE: AMC) acquired Carmike Cinemas in 2016, the Department of Justice asked AMC to sell 24 theaters it owned, representing approximately 400 movie screens, for approval.
Since then, however, the company that was created to run these theaters has filed for bankruptcy and is in the process of liquidating its assets. AMC is now looking for permission to buy 10 of those sales theaters.
Beekman Investment Partners created New Vision Theatres in 2017 to obtain and operate 16 cinemas sold with 184 screens of the AMC-Carmike deal. But New Jersey-based film ceased operations in July after failing to negotiate enough rents with their owners after the COVID-19 outbreak forced the closure of all cinemas in the country. He then initiated a liquidation procedure in Georgia.
First, AMC asked the District Court in Washington, D.C., to amend the consent order to allow it to reacquire some of the theaters.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the AMC movement presents the app as in the public interest because “[t]he existing degree of economic hardship experienced through AMC, New Vision and the entire theater industry is an exclusive change circumstance that may not have been expected at the time of the final ruling.”
The industry also notes that the Department of Justice does not oppose AMC’s efforts.
AMC, the world’s largest cinema operator and owned by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group, also danced to the point of recession bankruptcy. He has just announced that he is promoting a handful of theatres in the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia for $77 million in cash.