AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron anticipates that Paramount will ramp up its release slate under new ownership after the company’s sale to Skydance Media closed last week.
“We’ve had a very good relationship with Paramount across many generations of leadership,” Aron said on a a conference call after the giant theater chain’s second quarter earnings. “I’d especially like to thank [former studio chief] Brian Robbins and his executive team. They’ve been superb partners for AMC over the course of the last many years.
“At the same time, though, we are excited by Skydance‘s acquisition of Paramount, because Paramount has been cash hampered in recent years, which has caused them to greenlight fewer movies than they might have liked to. It appears to us that Skydance is cash rich, and it would be our expectation that Skydance will be releasing more movies coming out of Paramount than Paramount has been releasing in recent years.
“You’ll also recall that David Ellison is no rookie in the movie business,” he said of the chairman and CEO of new Paramount. “He’s been a prime force of some of the most important movies that have come out in recent years.” He called Top Gun: Maverick, where Skydance was an investor, “the single movie that you can point to since Covid hit in 2020 that turned the movie theater industry around. … It finally reminded various studio chiefs that the future was not only in their streaming services, but also in their theatrical releases, and that sometimes the most successful movies on streaming services were those movies that had a great theatrical releases.
He also praised Paramount’s new president Jeff Shell. “We’ve had a superb relationship with Jeff Shell over the past decade. … His influence over what happens at Paramount will be profound, and we think it’s going to be very good for exhibition.”
Ellison told CNBC on Friday that “we’re going to invest into our studios business” with Paramount releasing six to eight movies next year, rising to 15 in 2027. The merged company’s first big announcement only hours after closing, Paramount Pictures co-chairs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein nabbed hot package High Side, re-teaming A Complete Unknown’s James Mangold and Timothée Chalamet.
Shari Redstone officially closed the sale of her family company to Skydance last Thursday.
A side deal to that bigger transaction may well be Skydance unloading theater chain National Amusements, which it acquired from Redstone along with control of Paramount. Aron, on the call, alluded in general to potentially “interesting acquisition opportunities” for adding to its portfolio through M&A. The comment comes several days after Paramount brass indicated that the company is looking to exit the exhibition business.