AMC Might Branch Out Into Booze

On September 15, CEO Adam Aron posted a poll on X (formerly Twitter) asking what the company’s private label wine should be called, were it to become an official part of the menu. Although Aron was speaking hypothetically, maybe even jokingly, the question was so detailed that it’s safe to presume the tweet was more than just a passing notion.

“We launched our own brand of home popcorn, and soon will launch our own branded line of premium gourmet chocolate candies,” reads Aron’s post. “If we offered at our theatres our own branded wine, too, we might name it ‘Chateau Simian’ or ‘Saint Simian’ in honor of our retail investors. Your opinion?”

The use of “simian” here is a winking callout to so-called apes, or retail investors who treat AMC like a meme stock just like they did with GameStop. Interestingly, the final results of the poll, which had 18,300 votes, showed 32.7% of voters selected “Do other things”; in other words, they were against the company pursuing its own wine label and would prefer it to innovate elsewhere. Meanwhile, 30.9% of voters want the hypothetical wine to be named Saint Simian.
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