Over the past three years, Nicole Kidman’s AMC Theaters commercial has become one of the biggest memes in the movie industry. This Friday, it’s getting not one, not two, but three new versions.
During the theater chain’s earnings call on Wednesday, AMC CEO Adam Aron revealed that the new commercials with Kidman will premiere just before the start of movies at AMC locations nationwide.”
“We’re going to show three different reels on a rotating basis starting on March 1” Aron said. “You’ll see a different reel just before the movie begins.”
The new commercials come as AMC and theaters around the world are expecting a boost in turnout with the release of “Dune: Part Two,” which is expected to open to more than $70 million in the U.S.. Other big films like “Kung Fu Panda 4,” “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” are also on their way this month.
Kidman’s commercial first arrived at AMC Theaters in September 2021 with the release of the Marvel film “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” hitting the big screen at a time when theaters were pulling out all the stops to get the public to return to their auditoriums after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Weeks later, the ad became so well known that Chloe Fineman famously parodied it on an episode of “Saturday Night Live,” repeating Kidman’s speech in the commercial verbatim but with a comedically sinister twist.
Jimmy Kimmel also ribbed Kidman at last year’s Academy Awards in his opening monologue, saying he was relieved that she “has finally been released from that abandoned AMC where she has been held captive for the past two years.”
“And thank you for encouraging people who were already at the movie theater to go to the movie theater,” he joked.