Fresh off surviving a global pandemic that nearly killed it, America’s biggest theater chain is ready to seize opportunity.

AMC Entertainment Holdings said Tuesday that it will sell 8.5 million shares of company equity to Mudrick Capital Management, L.P. in order to free up $230.5 million in cash.

Those proceeds will be used to move in on the 300 ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres locations in California that were shuttered by owner Decurion Corp. in April. 

“Given our scale, experience and commitment to innovation and excellence, AMC is being presented with highly attractive theatre acquisition opportunities, said AMC President and CEO Adam Aron, in a statement. “We are in discussions, for example, with multiple landlords of superb theatres formerly operated by ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres. With this agreement with Mudrick Capital, we have raised funds that will allow us to be aggressive in going after the most valuable theatre assets, as well as to make other strategic investments in our business and to pursue deleveraging opportunities.”

AMC is the largest theater chain in the U.S., with 950 locations and 10,500 screens. 

Its stock price tumbled from a five-year high of $33.75 on December 1, 2020 to a nadir of just $2.12 on Dec. 1 of 2020, with the then-shuttered chain reporting staggering losses of $900 million in the all-important third quarter of last year. On December 11, with few of its locations open and the pandemic raging, AMC management warned its investors that it could potentially run out of cash by January. 

That was right around the time that Jason Kilar and WarnerMedia announced their landmark decision to release the entire 2021 film slate day and date on HBO Max streaming. 

But since around Jan. 20, things have gotten a lot better--for theater owners, for pretty much everybody. 

The major suppliers, including WarnerMedia, have agreed to return to exclusive theatrical windows starting in 2022, while also agreeing to share a portion of home video rental revenue. 

Universal's A Quiet Place 2 just opened to nearly $50 million domestically over the three-day Memorial Day holiday weekend. 

And AMC stock was up more than 20% today to over $31.50 a share. 

Comcast NBCUniversal’s Universal Pictures division has reached a landmark agreement with the biggest theater chain in the U.S., AMC Theatres, allowing the film distributor to release its titles straight to consume living rooms via premium VOD rental just 17 days after their theatrical release date.

The deal culminates over a decade of rising tension between movie distributors and exhibitors, with the former increasingly anxious to establish flexibility for marginal titles. That tension has boiled over amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with theaters shut down and studios looking for other ways to monetize their titles.

The Universal-AMC deal allows the theater chain to participate in the premium VOD window.

"AMC enthusiastically embraces this new industry model both because we are participating in the entirety of the economics of the new structure, and because premium video-on-demand creates the added potential for increased movie studio profitability, which should in turn lead to the green-lighting of more theatrical movies," AMC's chief executive, Adam Aron, said in a statement.

It’s unclear as to how much revenue participation AMC will have.

Universal enraged its theatrical distribution partners at the outset of the social distancing era in March, when it announced that Trolls World Tour,The Hunt, Emma and The Invisible Man would be available for $19.99 rental on transactional streaming services like Vudu the same day they were to be released in theaters.

Universal was emboldened when a self-reported 5 million consumers rented Trolls World Tour, generating $100 million.

Universal’s upcoming film slate includes Minions: The Rise of Gru, Halloween Kills (returning Jamie Lee Curtis to the 42-year-old horror franchise) and spy thriller 355 with Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz and Lupita Nyong’o. It also has Jurassic World and Fast and Furious installments slated for next year.

It’s viewed as unlikely that Universal will ply the premium VOD strategy to bigger titles like those last two franchises—it’s more for low- to mid-budget genre films.

“The theatrical experience continues to be the cornerstone of our business,” said Donna Langley, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group. “The partnership we’ve forged with AMC is driven by our collective desire to ensure a thriving future for the film distribution ecosystem and to meet consumer demand with flexibility and optionality.”

It's expected that Universal's studio rivals will push to establish similar arrangements with AMC. And it's expected that other exhibition chains will strike similar deals.

The arrangement doesn't necessarily foretell peace in our time for media companies and exhibitors.

Last week, for example, AT&T CEO John Stankey dismissed speculation that the company's Warner Bros. Pictures division might debut highly anticipated Christopher Nolan film Tenet on the new HBO Max SVOD service.

Stankey, however, did say that SVOD premiere might be appropriate for marginal theatrical releases. 

As part of NBCUniversal Hispanic Enterprises and Content’s social campaign Aprender es Triunfar, Telemundo, mun2, MSNBC and AMC Theaters are set to feature Mary Mazzio’s new documentary film Underwater Dreams. 

he film tells the story of four sons of Mexican immigrants who enter an underwater robotics competition against MIT engineers, fitting with Aprender es Triunfar’s mission to close the Latino student achievement gap in STEM education. The film will be hosted for free by AMC Theaters at up to 100 community screenings this summer, leading up to a television broadcast by MSNBC, TElemundo and mun2 in late July.     

AMC also plans to release Underwater Dreams theatrically on July 11, 2014. The television version will be broadcast simultaneously on MSNBC and Telemundo on July 20, with both English and Spanish versions available. The film will air on mun2 the following day, July 21.