AMC Entertainment vs Cinemark: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: AMC Entertainment and Cinemark side by side

1. 1920AMC Entertainment

   Dubinsky brothers buy the Regent Theatre

   Maurice, Edward and Barney Dubinsky, who had been touring the Midwest with melodrama tent shows, bought the Regent Theatre in downtown Kansas City, Missouri and traded as Dubinsky Bros.

2. 1947AMC Entertainment

   Circuit renamed Durwood Theatres

   After Edward Dubinsky changed the family name to Durwood, the company traded as Durwood-Dubinsky Bros. from 1939 and as Durwood Theatres from 1947. By 1932 it had grown to about 40 theatres in Missouri and Kansas.

3. 1960AMC Entertainment

   Stanley Durwood takes over

   Edward Durwood died in 1960 and his son Stanley took control of Durwood Theatres, then a chain of about ten theatres.

4. 1963AMC Entertainment

   First modern multiplex opens in Kansas City

   Stanley Durwood opened a two auditorium theatre in Kansas City in which both screens shared one box office, one concession stand and one staff, cutting the cost of showing several titles at one site.

5. 1968AMC Entertainment

   Company renamed American Multi-Cinema

   Durwood Theatres was renamed American Multi-Cinema, the source of the AMC initials, as Stanley Durwood expanded the multiplex format nationally.

6. 1977Cinemark

   Cinemark name first used

   Lee Roy Mitchell began operating theaters under the Cinemark name. In 1979, it merged with Texas Cinema Corporation to form a 25-theater circuit in Texas and New Mexico.

7. 1981AMC Entertainment

   First circuit to fit cupholder armrests

   AMC became the first theatre chain to add cupholder armrests, a fixture that spread across the industry.

8. 1983AMC Entertainment

   Initial public offering

   AMC went public in 1983 during a period of strong growth. Two years later it opened its first overseas multiplex, a ten screen site at The Point in Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom.

9. 1987Cinemark

   Plitt theaters acquired

   Cinemark bought all of Plitt Theatres, which had acquired the original Cinemark circuit in 1980. Cinemark USA, Inc. also began operating that year.

10. 1993Cinemark

    Entry into Latin America

    Cinemark opened a six-screen theater in Santiago, Chile. It entered Mexico in 1994 and Brazil in 1997.

11. 1995AMC Entertainment

    AMC Grand 24 opens in Dallas

    AMC opened the Grand 24 on May 19, 1995, the first megaplex in the United States, with 24 stadium seated screens. The format, at least 14 auditoriums with stepped risers, became the industry standard.

12. 2002AMC Entertainment

    Purchase of GC Companies out of bankruptcy

    AMC completed the purchase of GC Companies, parent of General Cinema, for about $167 million after a bankruptcy court approved its reorganization plan, adding 66 theatres with 621 screens in the United States and taking AMC to 3,520 screens in 247 complexes.

13. 2006AMC Entertainment

    Merger with Loews Cineplex completed

    The merger closed on January 26, 2006 and created a circuit of 415 theatres and 5,672 screens in 29 states, the District of Columbia and 11 foreign countries, with expected annual revenue of about $2.4 billion.

14. 2006Cinemark

    Century Theatres acquisition

    Cinemark completed its purchase of San Rafael, California-based Century Theatres on October 5, 2006. The deal added more than 80 theaters and made Cinemark the third-largest U.S. exhibitor.

15. 2007Cinemark

    NYSE IPO

    Cinemark Holdings, Inc. listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CNK in April 2007.

16. 2009Cinemark

    Cinemark XD launched

    Cinemark opened its first XD (Extreme Digital) premium large-format auditorium at Century San Francisco Centre 9.

17. 2012AMC Entertainment

    Dalian Wanda Group acquires AMC

    China's Dalian Wanda Group bought AMC in September 2012 in a $2.6 billion deal, providing the backing for the acquisitions that followed.

18. 2013AMC Entertainment

    Initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange

    AMC priced an initial public offering of 18,421,053 Class A shares at $18.00 per share, listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AMC from December 18, 2013, with net proceeds of about $314.2 million used mainly to retire debt.

19. 2013Cinemark

    Rave Cinemas deal closed; Mexico sold

    Cinemark closed its $240 million purchase of Rave Cinemas' 32 theaters and 483 screens and agreed to sell its Mexican theaters to Cinemex.

20. 2016AMC Entertainment

    Odeon and UCI and Carmike deals make AMC the largest exhibitor in the world

    AMC completed the purchase of Odeon and UCI Cinemas Group on November 30, 2016 for about $1.2 billion, then closed the acquisition of Carmike Cinemas on December 21, 2016 for approximately $1.1 billion including assumed debt, becoming the largest exhibitor in…

21. 2017AMC Entertainment

    Nordic Cinema Group acquired

    AMC completed the all cash purchase of Stockholm based Nordic Cinema Group on March 28, 2017 for SEK 5,756 million, about $651.9 million, adding 68 theatres with 463 screens under the SF Bio, SF Kino, Finnkino and Forum Cinemas brands and passing 1,000 theatre…

22. 2017Cinemark

    Movie Club launched

    Cinemark launched Movie Club in December 2017, a U.S. monthly subscription that includes one ticket per month and concession discounts.

23. 2018AMC Entertainment

    AMC Stubs A-List launches

    AMC launched the A-List subscription tier of AMC Stubs on June 26, 2018; it reached 860,129 members within a year and became the largest moviegoing subscription service in North America.

24. 2020AMC Entertainment

    Closures and the 17 day Universal window

    Theatres closed worldwide from March 2020. In April AMC said it would stop playing Universal films after the studio released Trolls World Tour on demand, and in July 2020 the two agreed that Universal and Focus Features titles need only play three weekends, 17…

25. 2020Cinemark

    Pandemic closures

    On March 18, 2020, Cinemark temporarily closed all 345 U.S. theaters. Revenue for 2020 fell to $686.3 million.

26. 2021AMC Entertainment

    Retail share sales take bankruptcy off the table

    AMC announced on January 25, 2021 that it had raised or secured commitments for $917 million of new equity and debt since December 14, 2020, including $506 million of equity from 164.7 million new shares, and said talk of an imminent bankruptcy was off the tab…

27. 2022Cinemark

    Sean Gamble becomes CEO

    Sean Gamble, who had joined Cinemark as CFO in 2014, became CEO on January 1, 2022, succeeding Mark Zoradi.

28. 2023AMC Entertainment

    APE units converted and a one for ten reverse split

    AMC effected a one for ten reverse stock split on August 24, 2023, and on August 25, 2023 converted all outstanding AMC Preferred Equity units into 99,540,642 shares of common stock, after which the units were delisted.

29. 2025AMC Entertainment

    Record revenue, still cash negative

    FY2025 revenue rose 4.6% to $4,848.9 million with Adjusted EBITDA of $387.5 million and a net loss of $632.4 million.

30. 2025Cinemark

    Best post-pandemic year

    Cinemark reported $3.115 billion in revenue, $138.2 million in net income, and 193 million attendees for 2025.

31. 2026AMC Entertainment

    Best quarter in company history and a new distribution label

    Second quarter 2026 revenue reached $1,596.7 million, up 14.2%, with Adjusted EBITDA of $321.4 million, the highest quarterly figures in AMC's 106 year history.

32. 2026Cinemark

    First $1 billion quarter

    Q2 2026 revenue reached $1.086 billion, and Movie Club passed 1.5 million members.

Acquisitions

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