AMC Theatres will shorten its pre-show by four to five minutes after weeks of complaints about 25–30 minute waits before features begin. On the company’s quarterly call, CEO Adam Aron said the trims will come from AMC’s own in-house reels and by dropping one trailer, while a new advertising pact remains in place. The goal, he said, is to ease the “deluge” without walking away from revenue the chain now considers necessary.
Aron outlined two concrete changes. First, AMC plans to scale back its etiquette and self-promotional spots—those reminders to silence phones and similar messages—by two to three minutes. Second, the circuit will cut one trailer from its typical lineup, shaving another two to three minutes. The newly added ads from National CineMedia will not be reduced: AMC’s agreement allows roughly five minutes of NCM ads after the listed showtime, plus a brief “platinum” spot before the final trailers.
The adjustment follows a policy update in July that told ticket buyers to expect movies to begin 25–30 minutes after the posted showtime. That warning coincided with AMC’s decision to start running NCM inventory, a reversal from earlier years and a move Aron defended as aligning with competitors and addressing a weak first quarter. Studio marketers, meanwhile, have worried that longer pre-shows encourage patrons to arrive late and miss trailers, which remain a key awareness driver for upcoming releases.
Aron also tied the rethink to broader customer-facing tweaks as AMC seeks steadier attendance while preserving per-patron spending. He noted the chain recently added a second discount day for loyalty members and said the company would look to optimize what it controls in the pre-show—its own clips and trailer count—rather than contractual ad time. The message to moviegoers is that wait times should shrink, but they should still plan for ads and multiple trailers before the feature.
