AMC Entertainment Creates Leawood Films with the Aim of Having More Movies Distributed to the Big Screen
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AMC Entertainment has announced the creation of Leawood Films, a new film distribution company headquartered both in Los Angeles and AMC Theatres home base of Leawood, Kansas. It will focus on bringing additional movies to theatrical audiences in the U.S. and across the globe, leveraging its marketing ability and the prominence of its exhibition network, and further expanding the range of content available to moviegoers.
Leawood Films is buoyed by the substantial screen count achieved for AMC’s theatrical distribution efforts industry-wide for Taylor SWIFT | The Eras Tour, and Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé in 2023, followed by Taylor SWIFT | The Official Release Party of a Showgirl in 2025. In addition to AMC’s ability to commit a significant number of its own available screens, Leawood Films expects to partner and collaborate with a wide array of other leading movie theater circuits domestically and internationally.
Rather than financing productions, developing scripts, or assuming the traditional risks associated with film production, Leawood Films is intentionally conceived as a disciplined low-risk opportunity for AMC, which intends to work only with established and emerging filmmakers who are able to secure full financing for their own films, or who already have completed films in hand. Leawood Films will respect a 45-day or greater PVOD window and a 90-day or more SVOD window. AMC intends that the vast majority of its movies’ downstream revenues after they leave theaters, and the ownership of their IP, will remain with their filmmakers. Accordingly, certain economic benefits enjoyed by filmmakers working with Leawood Films often may differ markedly from traditional studio distribution arrangements.
Leawood Films will focus primarily on small and medium-sized releases, films that otherwise might have difficulty in securing distribution backing elsewhere. It will not be constrained to specific film genres, nor will it be limited to distributing only music/concert-oriented movies where AMC has had so much success previously. Leawood Films is being launched in part to address excess capacity in the movie theater industry. AMC believes that Leawood Films will be additive to the movie ecosystem and has been created to augment the supply of movie content, rather than supplant the motion picture release slates in either priority or prominence of AMC’s traditional studio partners and other key distributors. Their longstanding source of movie content, studio and other distribution relationships have been and will continue to be AMC’s primary partnerships going forward.
Leawood Films will be led by a team of advisors that includes a cadre of accomplished and distinguished entertainment industry veterans. The group includes Toby Emmerich, former chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures Group; Ricky Strauss, former president of marketing for The Walt Disney Studios; and Kyle Davies, the former president of domestic distribution at Paramount Pictures and the former president of distribution at Bleecker Street. Leawood Films will be represented by Craig Jacobson, a leading entertainment attorney and a founding partner of Hansen Jacobson. Collectively, they will report to AMC Entertainment Chairman and CEO, Adam Aron.
AMC expects to be aided in this Leawood Films venture by experienced firms with significant distribution expertise and credentials, with whom AMC has worked extremely well previously. Notably, they are headlined by Variance Films in North America and Piece of Magic Entertainment internationally, among others. At present, Leawood Films has not yet selected titles for release. The first projects are expected to take place in calendar years 2027 or 2028.
AMC Entertainment Chairman and CEO Adam Aron commented, “Leawood Films is being created with a straightforward objective, given that substantial excess capacity exists in the movie theater industry: to bring more movies to theaters. If we can take steps to ensure that a few extra movies come to theaters each year, it is gravy for AMC in the United States and Odeon in Europe, as well as for our fellow exhibitors.”
Aron continued: “One of the keys to the success of our Taylor Swift and Beyoncé film projects in 2023 and 2025 was the extraordinarily successful cooperation we received from movie theatre circuits across the United States and around the world. We intend to take a collaborative approach with Leawood Films, and we look forward to working with exhibitors throughout our industry at home and abroad to bring compelling films to audiences everywhere. The movie theatre industry benefits when there are more high-quality films available to theatrical moviegoers, and that is exactly what this initiative is designed to achieve.”
Aron explained, “This is a modestly scaled initiative focused on taking to the big screen films that are fully financed by their film makers. We are aiming particularly to increase the number of small and mid-budget sized movies that get released theatrically. It is highly unlikely that Leawood Films will include blockbuster tentpole type releases. So, our Leawood Films effort is intended to complement, not compete with, the crucial work of our longstanding existing partnerships with major studios and key distribution partners. It is worth emphasizing that we firmly expect to continue delivering top-shelf results for our existing studio and other key distributor partners, as they continue to produce movie content for AMC at levels exponentially and orders of magnitude greater than that expected from Leawood Films.”
Aron added, “Ultimately, moviegoers consistently demonstrate their appetite for a wide variety of theatrical content, and we believe there are more outstanding films that deserve the opportunity to find audiences on the big screen. Through Leawood Films, we believe we can bring meaningful value to filmmakers whose movies might otherwise not get made, or which might not be taken to theaters. We can assure them the availability of movie theater screens and attractive economics, as well as have them benefit from our relationships across the exhibition industry, our proven marketing capabilities, and our extensive experience connecting theatrical content with moviegoing audiences.”
Aron concluded, “What makes us especially excited to make this announcement today is that we have been successful in enlisting Toby Emmerich, Ricky Strauss, Kyle Davies and Craig Jacobson to help us with this effort. We have assembled a truly distinguished, knowledgeable and experienced group to advise us on Leawood Films. Throwing into the mix AMC’s size, scale and considerable resources, and adding in highly able and experienced Hollywood veterans with us right from the start, we will come out of the blocks ready to run.”
