AMC CEO Adam Aron Backs Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger

AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron broke ranks with his fellow exhibitors this week, publicly backing the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger even as much of the theater industry mobilizes against it.

The split matters. Most major exhibitors have spent CinemaCon arguing the deal would shrink the film slate, cut jobs, and hand too much power to a single consolidated studio. Their concerns aren’t abstract. Fewer releases means fewer showtimes, and fewer showtimes means fewer tickets sold at concession-dependent multiplexes that run on razor-thin margins. But Aron, whose company operates more than 900 locations across the United States, doesn’t see it that way.

A-list opposition has amplified the noise. This week, actors including Ben Stiller, Javier Bardem, and Kristen Stewart signed a petition opposing the sale, arguing it would create fewer opportunities for creators and fewer jobs across the industry. That kind of talent-side pressure is unusual. Studios and exhibitors argue constantly, but when performers start circulating petitions at the industry’s marquee trade show, it signals something deeper than a contract dispute.

Aron went the other direction.

His argument, per Variety, is that a stronger combined studio could actually produce more films and invest more aggressively in theatrical releases, not fewer. Scale, in his view, helps rather than hurts. Whether the other major chains buy that logic is a different question entirely, and several of them have made their skepticism loudly known at CinemaCon.

The Burbank angle here is real. Warner Bros. Discovery currently employs thousands of people across its Burbank lot on West Olive Avenue, and a Paramount acquisition would set off an immediate round of speculation about which operations stay, which consolidate, and which disappear entirely. Production staff, post-production crews, the marketing departments, the physical lot itself: all of it becomes a negotiating chip. The Media District has been through consolidation before, but a deal of this scale would reshape the geography of the local entertainment economy in ways that ripple past the lot gates and into the restaurants, parking structures, and small production vendors that depend on studio activity.

On the Taylor Swift front, Aron signaled openness to future collaborations along the lines of the “Eras Tour” concert film that AMC co-released in 2023. That deal was a significant moment for exhibition, generating substantial box office from a non-traditional film product and demonstrating that theaters can serve as venues for event content beyond conventional Hollywood releases. Aron didn’t commit to a specific project, but his comments suggest AMC is actively pursuing more of that kind of partnership.

He also addressed AMC’s evolving relationship with Netflix. The two companies don’t have a straightforward arrangement. Netflix has historically bypassed theaters in favor of its streaming platform, but the two sides have found occasional common ground on specific titles. Aron’s willingness to talk publicly about working with Netflix reflects a broader shift in how exhibitors think about streaming companies: less as existential enemies and more as potential partners for the right content at the right moment.

That pragmatism defines Aron’s public posture right now. He’s not fighting every battle the rest of the exhibition business is fighting. AMC’s scale gives him room to negotiate rather than protest, and his CinemaCon positioning reflects a CEO who thinks the path forward runs through deal-making, not petitions.

What the merger actually produces, if regulators approve it, won’t be clear for months. The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice have both shown appetite for scrutinizing entertainment industry consolidation, and a Paramount-Warner Bros. combination would represent one of the largest studio mergers in decades. The Writers Guild of America and other industry unions are also watching closely, given that the last major consolidation wave produced significant layoffs across studio workforces.

For the crew members and support staff who work daily on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, the outcome of boardroom conversations happening hundreds of miles away will determine their day-to-day reality. Adam Aron may be at peace with the deal, but the people loading equipment onto Stage 16 or cutting trailers in the post buildings along Olive are the ones who will actually live with whatever comes next, and their job security doesn’t show up in any CEO’s CinemaCon remarks.