Got 15 cents? Theater chain offers retro pricing

NEW YORK — AMC Theatres, the nation’s largest movie theater chain, will reopen in the U.S. Thursday with retro ticket prices of 15 cents per movie.

AMC Entertainment, which owns the chain, said this week that it expects to open the doors to more than 100 cinemas — about one-sixth of its nationwide locations — with throwback pricing for a day.

AMC theaters have reopened in several countries around the world but have remained shuttered in the U.S. since March. The chain touted the reopening as “Movies in 2020 at 1920 Prices.”

After several false starts due to a summer rise in coronavirus cases throughout much of the U.S., widespread moviegoing is currently set to resume in late August.

Regal Cinemas, the second largest chain, is scheduled to reopen some U.S. locations Aug. 21.

During its opening-day promotion, AMC will show catalog films, including “Ghostbusters,” “Black Panther,” “Back to the Future” and “Grease.”

Those older films will continue to play afterward for $5.

AMC confirmed that Disney’s muchdelayed “New Mutants” will debut in theaters Aug. 28, with Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” to follow Sept. 3.

Warner Bros. is planning to release “Tenet” a week earlier internationally, including in Canada.

A handful of smaller new releases are also planned for late August, including “Unhinged,” a thriller from Solstice Studios with Russell Crowe; and Armando Iannucci’s “Personal History of David Copperfield,” from Disney’s Fox Searchlight.

AMC expects about two-thirds of its theaters will be open in time for “Tenet.”

Several states, including California and New York, have yet to allow movie theaters to reopen.

AMC and other chains have said they will operate at reduced capacity to facilitate social distancing, along with increased theater cleaning and required mask wearing.

The U.S. leads the world with more than 5.2 million coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data.