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After five months of being closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, AMC Theatres is finally ready to reopen its doors, or at least a few of them. On Aug. 20, the largest theater chain in the country will begin the reopening process in select cities, with more to follow in the weeks afterward.
The theaters will open with a promotion that AMC is calling “Movies in 2020 at 1920 Prices.” In a callback to 1920, the year AMC opened its first locations, the company will offer 15-cent tickets when theaters reopen on Aug. 20. Movies that will be playing in theaters when they reopen include Black Panther, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Grease, and Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, as well as the special 10th anniversary screenings of Inception.
As for new movies, the long-awaited release of the X-Men film The New Mutants will be one of the first film to greet theatergoers when it premieres on Aug. 28. A week later, Tenet, the mysterious new Christopher Nolan film, will open on Sept. 3 after being delayed by a little over a month.
The AMC Theatres locations that will reopen are mostly in areas with lower spread of COVID-19, and in states where officials allow it. AMC also included in its announcement a long section about its efforts to keep each of its locations clean, socially distant, and healthy, in an attempt to minimize COVID-19 exposure risk for its customers. These measures include mandatory masks for everyone, reduced seating capacity to ensure socially distanced screenings, advanced cleaning procedures between showings, and MERV-13 air filters in the HVAC systems of all possible theaters.
AMC Theatres has faced significant hardship as a company over the months since it first closed theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, it has considered reopening theaters several times, often with vague, months-wide windows for reopening. But this is the closest the theater chain has gotten so far, considering that first theaters will welcome customers just one week from now.
