Mike Snider
USA TODAY
Published 12:01 PM EDT Oct 15, 2019
AMC Theatres, already the world’s largest movie chain, is increasing its reach – into your home and onto your smartphone.
Similar to how you can buy and rent movies on Apple and Amazon’s video services, you can now buy or rent about 2,000 movies from AMC’s website and its app on mobile devices, net TV devices such as Roku and smart TVs.
Among the offerings: Disney’s live-action “The Lion King” and “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,” both still in theaters, can be purchased in high-definition or standard-def for $19.99.
Other recent films, such as “Rocketman,” can also be rented – in HD for $5.99 and SD $4.99 or purchased for $19.99.
‘Fortnite’: You can play the online video game again with arrival of ‘Chapter 2’
Personal tech: Who needs an implanted microchip when there’s an app for that?
Older films such as “Jurassic Park” (1993) and 2009’s “Zombieland,” which has a sequel “Zombieland: Double Tap” out Friday, available for rent for $3.99 ($11.99-$12.99 to buy).
AMC has secured deals with all the major movie studios to supply films to its on-demand service, which is tied to its AMC Stubs loyalty program.
A special promotional launch deal gets AMC Stubs members who make their first rental or purchase a film from Lionsgate or Paramount can get an additional three movies from that studios’ offerings.
“With more than 20 million AMC Stubs households, and with our website and smartphone apps already being visited hundreds of millions of times annually by movie fans, AMC Theatres is in a unique position to promote specific movies with greater personalization than has ever been possible before,” said AMC Theatres CEO and president Adam Aron in a statement. “Through the launch of AMC Theatres On Demand, we can reach movie lovers directly and make it easy for them to access films digitally.”
Online movie rentals and purchases will earn members AMC Stubs points that can be redeemed for rewards.
This is just AMC’s latest move to drive movie watching. Last year, it launched AMC Stubs A-List, which lets current Stubs rewards members pay $19.95 a month and attend up to three movies a week – a competitor to MoviePass.
AMC Theatres is majority-owned by Chinese conglomerate the Dalia Wanda Group, which acquired the chain in 2012. In 2016, AMC acquired Carmike Cinemas, which expanded the company into the largest U.S. theater chain and also acquired Europe’s largest movie chain, Odeon & UCI Cinemas Group.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
