Adam Aron

AMC Entertainment CEO and president Adam Aron has had quite the year. 2020 found him at the helm of a company on the brink of bankruptcy as the movie theater industry reeled in the pandemic’s wake.

“A once-in-a-century event has transformed 2020 into a brutal year, and movie theater businesses have been hit particularly hard,” Aron said during a quarterly earnings call last August.

But they say challenges are what make a great leader, and Aron was determined to prove it. “[W]e are confident that at AMC, we are taking the right steps to emerge from this crisis and to thrive once again as the leader in our industry,” he continued. “ …We cannot just live in the past and fear change. One has to stare change in the face and reshape it for one’s own benefit.”

And reshape the future, he did. Thanks to emergency infusions of cash, r/WallStreetBets, and Aron’s deft leadership, the Big Three movie theater chains only lost 100 locations—largely, it could be argued, because Aron was ready to strike when the iron was hot.

As opposed to GameStop, which opted to do absolutely nothing about its internet-induced stock craze, AMC ushered its new Reddit investors into the fold earlier this month by offering them free popcorn if they sign up for AMC Investor Connect, a platform putting AMC “in direct communication with its extraordinary base of enthusiastic and passionate individual shareholders to keep them up to date about important company information and providing them with special offers.”

“Many of our investors have demonstrated support and confidence in AMC,” he said in a statement announcing the initiative. “We intend to communicate often with these investors, and from time to time provide them with special benefits at our theaters.” Talk about leaning in.