At CinemaCon, movie theater owners have come out swinging against Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros., worrying that a sale will lead to fewer films. This week, A-list stars from Ben Stiller to Javier Bardem and Kristen Stewart signed a petition opposing the sale and arguing it would lead “fewer opportunities for creators, fewer jobs across the production ecosystem, higher costs, and less choice for audiences.” You might think that as the head of AMC, the world’s largest movie chain, Adam Aron is ready to join them on the barricades.
You would be wrong. Aron doesn’t seem concerned about what David Ellison, the Skydance founder who has rolled up Paramount and then turned his eyes towards Warner Bros., is building in Hollywood. Instead, he thinks the mogul’s days as a movie producer on films like “Top Gun: Maverick” means he will be a big booster of the theatrical experience. And that’s the mot important thing for Aron.
“It is time for AMC to make known our favorable view about Paramount’s desire to acquire Warner,” Aron said in a statement to the press on Thursday. “I greatly appreciate David Ellison’s track record of success and his passion to make movies that will dazzle audiences the world over. In just the short time he has owned Paramount Pictures, he already has begun to assemble a superb team around him and already has been increasing the number of movies being greenlit at Paramount.”
Aron elaborated on his appreciation for what Ellison has been building, while also touching on the potential for more collaborations with Taylor Swift and the box office rebound that the movie business has been enjoying this year in a wide-ranging interview last month.
How are you feeling about the business?
I am the most optimistic and most confident that I have been in six years. That’s because finally we’re going to see some real growth year-over-year. Exactly six years ago, we had to close all of our theaters because of COVID and the domestic box office went from $11.5 billion dollars in 2019 to $2 billion in 2020 and then it grew to $4.5 billion in 2021, which is a fraction of pre-COVID levels. Then for the last three years, a lot of it having to do with the strikes in Hollywood and some studios cutting back, the box office was flat at between $8.7 billion and $9 billion. This year we’re going to see dramatic growth, and we certainly have seen that in the first quarter so far. And when movies like “Project Hail Mary “come out with an opening weekend of $80 million and coming from Amazon, a company that wasn’t even in the movie business four years ago, that’s great news for our industry. I’m looking for a much improved 2026.
What gives you that confidence?
A combination of more movies and better movies. If you look at the number of wide release movies coming out of Hollywood, it’s been down about 30%. If you actually look at moviegoing in theaters per movie, the attendance levels are similar to what they were pre-COVID, but there were fewer movies coming out. Warner Bros. has said publicly that they intend to go from 11 movies last year to 15 or 16 this year. Paramount, which had seven movies last year, is committed to releasing 15 this year. Amazon, which wasn’t in the movie business four years ago, has committed to at least a dozen movies this year, and 15 movies in 2027. I’ve always said that when Hollywood makes movies that people want to see, they come out to theaters and droves. And if you look at the floodgate of titles that are coming out, it’s going to be one hit after another. And yes, some of those movies are franchise IP sequels, like, “Super Mario Bros.” But others, like Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day,” are original stories. That combination is pretty powerful.
But you publicly predicted that 2025 was going to be the year when the comeback started to happen. Instead, ticket sales were essentially flat. Were you surprised?
We thought we were going to see some big growth, so when that didn’t happen, we were very surprised. Some movies were delayed or moved out of the year, and other movies didn’t live up to expectations, which was disappointing.
Universal, which had pushed to get movies onto home entertainment platforms in as little as 17 days, recently announced it would embrace a 45 day window. What was your reaction?
Euphoria.
How much of a problem do you think it was that the windows were were as short as they were? Do youthink that was a major reason the business lost so much revenue?
Well prior to COVID, the window was 74 days for PVOD (premium video-on-demand), and much longer than that for SVOD (streaming video-on-demand). And theoretically, the industry coalesced around a 45 day window, except for Universal, who was at 17 days on smaller movies and 31 on bigger movies. But that was a fiction, because studio after studio after studio, with the exception of Disney, was actually releasing movies to the home routinely at 25 to 35 days. So it had to have some effect, because we were collectively training the consumer to stay at home and wait.
Did Universal Entertainment chief Donna Langley give you a heads up before the studio made its announcement?
She called and explained her thinking. And I expressed our gratitude and admiration for what she was doing.
You were talking about educating the consumer. Is there anything that can be done to re-familiarize them with the length of the windows?
We’ll make those determinations as we go. There’s a lot of ways that you can get the word out. A lot of studios have started putting in their trailers: “only in theaters.” I think you’ll see more and more of that over the remainder of 2026.
Let’s talk a little bit about consolidation. What is your reaction to Paramount buying Warner Bros.?
Well, first, we have great respect for Warner Bros. They had a spectacular run in 2025, with one successful movie after another. Having said that we have a lot of affection for what David Ellison has brought to Paramount. Under the prior ownership, Paramount was only releasing about seven movies a year. He, very publicly, has said he wants to take Paramount up to 15. AMC didn’t make a public comment when it seemed like Netflix might purchase Warner Bros., but I can say that we are in favor of anything that brings more movies, better movies, and well-marketed movies to theaters. We were excited by what Warner Bros. was doing on its own. We’re excited by what David Ellison has brought to Paramount and actually, over the past four months, we’ve worked more cooperatively with Netflix than we have in the past eight years. So we’ll have to see what transactions ultimately are approved by the U.S. government. But at AMC, we like the fact that people who are interested in the movie business want to make more movies,
Did you prefer Paramount as a buyer to Netflix?
I have a lot of respect for all three of the companies that we’re talking about. Warner makes great movies, David Ellison is a movie maker, and Netflix has the potential to embrace theaters much more than it has in the past. So you know, we’ll find out together what happens.
You say you’re impressed by David Ellison. Why? What has he done that you think is particularly impressive?
Have you ever heard of a little movie called “Top Gun: Maverick”?
I give Tom Cruise most of the credit for that.
Have you ever heard of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise?
Again, I think Tom Cruise gets most of the credit there.
They both get some credit. I’m not alone in telling Tom Cruise that post-COVID, he’s the man who saved the entire movie industry with the release of “Top Gun: Maverick” in theaters. But David also gets a lot of credit for that as well. They were Skydance movies.
There’s been a lot of skepticism among exhibitors towards Netflix? Do you think that that theater owners’ fears about Netflix buying Warner Bros. were warranted?
It’s pretty obvious that Netflix was not in the business of embracing theatrical exhibition in the past, other than for very limited runs to qualify for Oscar consideration. That changed in 2025. I think they see the benefits of working with us now.
How has your relationship with Netflix improved?
We’ve done three things with Netflix in the past few months, and this is a direct consequence of a meeting that we had in September, in which we announced that the two companies had decided to start working together. In October, we showed “KPop Demon Hunters” at Halloween. On New Year’s Day, we showed the series finale of “Stranger Things.” And just two weeks ago, we showed the first two episodes of the new season of their series “One Piece.” In each case, AMC was a major driver of the tickets that were sold in theaters for these Netflix experiences. And Netflix has said publicly, and AMC has said publicly, we expect to do more together in 2026 and beyond. AMC has announced that we will play Greta Gerwig’s upcoming “Narnia” in cooperation with IMAX. But we don’t want to wait until then to do more with Netflix. We would love to do more with Netflix right now.
You had great success distributing Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” and “Life of a Showgirl” documentaries. Are you talking to her team about other collaborations?
One of the most exciting developments in my entire career was AMC’s collaborations with Taylor Swift. She really is one of a kind. It was the honor of a lifetime for our company to be heavily involved with Taylor. We’ve become very close over the past few years, and I would expect that we will stay close going forward. Having said that there’s no specific project that’s in the works.
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