AMC Voorhees 16

AMC-Carmike has receive conditional approval from the Justice Department. Per Reuters The Justice Department expressed two concerns over the merger. The first had to do with loss of competition between movie theaters in 15 markets in nine states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. One condition for the acquisition was that AMC or Carmike be required to sell a theater in each of those markets. http://reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1491ZN

What I read on AMC’s website, the Carmike Popcorn bucket program is staying. Also this was the only Carmike location in NJ that AMC acquired with the merger, the other 4 locations (Cranford 5 – Cranford, NJ; Town Center 10 – East Windsor, NJ; Sparta 3 – Sparta, NJ; Rialto 6 – Westfield, NJ) were not included.

Carmike is slowly becoming an AMC theater, they have installed a Coke freestyle machine and on March 14th will install new pricing, eliminating 5.00 Wednesdays, The better be careful the reason this theater does well is because of the relationships they have with their customers.

The first week of AMC Voorhees, was a bit bumpy. Beauty and the Beast was handled well but the theater will go through major changes in the first few months. The Coca-Cola Freestyle machine is ugly and ruins the lobby, I am sure AMC will make this theater look like an AMC theater. The classic movie posters and photos of great directors will be removed, the competition from Cinemark in Somerdale with their “luxury seating”, will prompt AMC to do the same, and I am sure a “baby IMAX or Lie-Max” will be built, Romon Posel is turning over in his grave, too bad, this theater had a great run but the Barbarians are at the gate.

Why do I have this feeling AMC won’t be around for long? Perhaps it’s the history of the theater at this point, but AMC is the kind of company that will run a gold mine into the ground. Going back to the Posel days, the theater occupied a certain niche and succeeded. However, the theater exists in this strange place in the market where it’s not a huge theater near a mall or central corridor like route 73, but it’s not really a small theater either. I suspect the place will fail because AMC will assume that it can charge really high prices because of its location in an affluent area, like the Marlton 8 post conversion, and that will repel both the loyal “annual popcorn bucket” crowd and the folks like me who do see the specialty films that will likely be eliminated from the programming mix.

The theater’s location and context on the market make it difficult for a chain like AMC to run it well, which Carmike did to their credit by being hands off. If you go through this comments section, I have made my position clear that this theater works best if it caters to niche and builds a devoted following like… perhaps… an Alamo Drafthouse. (Tim League, if you’re reading this, please try to acquire this theater if the opportunity arises) There are just too many multiplexes in the market that are like what the AMC Voorhees 16 will surely become. You could do a lot better with that location, and charge the kind of prices AMC thinks it can get out of an affluent bedroom community, if you try to be unique. “Quality will out” as they say.