Thanks to at run of successful titles like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ” and “Jurassic World Dominion,” cinema operators in North America were able to significantly improve their bottom lines during the second quarter of 2022, from the same period a year earlier. That shouldn’t come as a surprise given that many movie theatres were still closed due to COVID during Q2 of 2021 and new movie releases were nonexistent.

AMC, the regions largest exhibitor, decreased its loss to USD $121.6 million from USD $344 million in losses during the same quarter in 2021. Revenue also improved by over 100% from USD $444.7 million last year to USD $1.16 billion in 2022. That allowed adjusted EBITDA to leap from a loss of USD $150.8 million for the second quarter of 2021 to a positive USD $257.5 million this year.

All of this news was overshadowed by the announcement the company would offer current shareholders a special dividend dubbed AMC Preferred Equity Units (or APE, in honor of the company’s retail investors). AMC’s stock price has been on a tear ever since the earnings announcement on August 4th, up 36% to USD $25.46.

Meanwhile, Cinemark posted a second quarter loss of USD $73.4 million, which sounds bad, until you realize the theatre chain lost USD $142.4 million during the second quarter in 2021. The company’s revenue climbed 152.6% to USD $744.1 million causing EBITDA to reach USD $138.3 million compared to last year’s loss of USD $11.8 million. A promising leading indicator was Cinemark’s attendance during Q2 which jumped to 52 million patrons.

Up north, Cineplex, the largest movie theatre chain in Canada, made a profit for the first time since the pandemic began. The exhibitor saw net income squeak in at CAD $1.3 million. While that might seem low, keep in mind that during the second quarter of 2021 the company lost CAD $103.7 million. Also on the upswing was revenue which leapt to CAD $349.9 million from last year’s CAD $64.9 million for the same period. Attendance was also up from 1.1 million to 11.1 million, year-over-year.