Sources are telling us this morning that the Stranger Things finale cleared well north of $25M, possibly even $30M, in concession cash to movie theaters over its New Year’s Eve and New Years Day play. Of that figure, $15M was generated by the No. 1 circuit, AMC Theaters off an attendance of 753,000. By comparison, 20th Century Studios’ Avatar: Fire and Ash, the No. 1 grossing film of the season, made a combined $23.7M over New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
Exhibition couldn’t charge for tickets to The Netflix event given the cast’s contractual terms for residuals, hence the streamer and circuits got around this by reserving seats with concession vouchers. At AMC theaters, such concession vouchers cost $20 per seat. At 231 locations, AMC had a bit more than a third of the total theater count showing Stranger Things. AMC estimates that more than half of all Stranger Things fans watched the finale in a movie theater do so at an AMC venue.
Strangers Things finale played in over 620 locations, and the series creators, the Duffer Brothers, announced two days before the finale played theaters that 1.1 million seats were sold, a number that was ahead of KPop Demon Hunters RSVPs (700M) before it’s late August two-day play. Note, AMC, the no. 1 circuit didn’t play KPop during that run, which yielded exhibitors $19M, and delivered Netflix its first No. 1 ranking title at the weekend box office. You could say that Stranger Things finale is their new No. 1 ranking title at the B.O. (though not on a weekend) — but it’s not box office, it’s concession cash which the movies theaters get to keep, and don’t have co-share ala a regular studio film rental. That’s a sweet late Christmas gift from Netflix, the pending owner of Warner Bros.
Exhibition wants Netflix to commit to theatrical runs more, and the streamer will have contractual obligations to filmmakers once they complete their acquisition of Warner Bros. Stranger Things finale is something of an olive branch to exhibition, and a means for Netflix to experiment and dip their toes into the theatrical business. Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has waffled in his messaging on theatrical telling analysts on an earnings call post the success of KPop that Netflix prioritizes their first run movies for the service. Post Netflix firming up its bid for Warner Bros, Sarandos has changed his tune, telling the media, ““There’s been a lot of talk about theatrical distribution, so we want to set the record straight: we are 100% committed to releasing Warner Bros. films in theaters with industry-standard windows.” The town continues to worry what “traditional” means for Netflix. Sources have told Deadline that Netflix have been proponents of a 17-day window which would steamroll the theatrical business, while circuits such as AMC believe the line needs to be held around 45 days.
The Stranger Things finale began its play in theaters at 5PM EST on New Year’s Eve and continued throughout yesterday.
Netflix doesn’t report box office grosses, or for that matter, theater chains’ concession revenue.
Below is AMC CEO Adam Aron’s quote:
LEAWOOD, Kan.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Adam Aron, Chairman and CEO of AMC Entertainment (NYSE: AMC), the world’s largest theatrical exhibitor, issued the following statement today:
“A few months ago, we announced that in September of 2025, a high-level dialogue between AMC and Netflix led to both companies pledging to explore ways to visibly begin working together.
This led quickly to AMC showing, in many of its theatres, a Halloween bring-back of Netflix’s immensely popular KPop Demon Hunters. It was quite the success. AMC was responsible for more than 35% of all the attendance for KPop Demon Hunters that holiday weekend. So, the two companies immediately turned their focus to what would come next in their mutual cooperation.
That next effort took place on the just-completed New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, when AMC showed, in 231 of its U.S. theatres, the multi-hour cultural phenomenon of the series finale for Netflix’s much-acclaimed Stranger Things. This unprecedented theatrical event was nothing less than an absolute triumph.
In addition to the countless millions of people who will enjoy Stranger Things on the Netflix streaming platform, in just two days, more than 753,000 Stranger Things fans flocked to an AMC Theatre to personally join in the celebration. AMC had slightly more than one-third of the total theatre count showing the Stranger Things series finale, and AMC estimates that more than half of all Stranger Things fans who saw the series finale in a movie theater did so at an AMC.
Consumer demand was so high that AMC repeatedly and exponentially added thousands of additional showtimes across its participating locations. In the end, AMC had more than nine times the available seating capacity allocated to Stranger Things than was originally envisioned. The admissions price was free, but required the mandatory purchase of a $20 per-person food and beverage credit. As a result, AMC collected more than $15.0 million in just two days from Stranger Things showtimes.
At AMC, our company is excited about the prospect of taking more Netflix content to theatre goers, and I might add that the working relationship between the two companies in our two recent projects has been easy, creative, and seamless. It should come as no surprise then that our two companies already have actively commenced discussing what additional Netflix programming can be shown on AMC’s giant screens.
I have every confidence that more enticing joint projects will emerge for Netflix and AMC in 2026 and beyond, all the while with AMC respecting its obligations to treat its many studio partners in an even-handed manner.
In our view, it especially makes sense to do so because so many of AMC’s guests already are mutual customers of both Netflix and AMC. Indeed, in the United States, of the millions of members of the AMC Stubs loyalty program, approximately 2/3 of them report that they also are Netflix subscribers. Both in what we just experienced with KPop Demon Hunters and Stranger Things, and in what also will be coming in the months and years ahead, AMC remains committed to seeking mutually beneficial opportunities to join Netflix’s award-winning content with the superb theatrical experience offered day in and day out by AMC Theatres.”