STRANGER THINGS Finale Turns Movie Theaters into Cash Machines With $25M+ Concession Haul; AMC Leads the Charge

Netflix’s Stranger Thingsdidn’t just dominate living rooms over New Year’s. The series finale pulled off something few streaming titles ever have by flooding movie theaters and generating a massive wave of concession revenue.

Over its New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day run, the finale delivered well north of $25 million to movie theaters and insiders say it could be closer to $30 million once all locations are fully tallied.

More than 60% of that total came from AMC Theatres, which alone rang up $15 million in concession sales from 753,000 attendees. That figure is especially eye-opening when stacked next to traditional box office benchmarks.

For context, 20th Century Studios’ Avatar: Fire and Ash, the top-grossing film of the season, earned $23.7 million in combined ticket sales across the same two holiday days.

The big difference here is that this wasn’t box office revenue. Due to cast contractual terms tied to residuals, exhibitors couldn’t sell tickets to the Stranger Things finale.

The workaround came via seat reservations bundled with concession vouchers. At AMC locations, that meant a mandatory $20 food and beverage credit per seat. No revenue sharing. No studio rental fees. Every dollar stayed with the theaters.

AMC hosted the event at 231 locations, accounting for a little more than one-third of the total theater count nationwide. According to AMC estimates, more than half of all fans who chose to watch the finale in a theater did so at one of its venues. Across all circuits, the finale played in over 620 locations.

Two days before the event, series creators Duffer Brothers announced that 1.1 million seats had already been sold. That figure cleared the RSVP count for KPop Demon Hunters, which logged around 700,000 ahead of its late-August two-day theatrical run.

That earlier event generated $19 million for exhibitors and delivered Netflix its first-ever No. 1 weekend ranking at the box office. AMC didn’t participate in that run, making the Stranger Things finale an even bigger statement for the circuit.

While it didn’t technically chart on a weekend box office list, it effectively becomes Netflix’s new No. 1 theatrical event. It’s just measured in popcorn and soda instead of ticket stubs.

For exhibitors, it landed like a late Christmas gift. For Netflix, it functioned as both an experiment and a gesture of goodwill. Exhibition has been pushing the streamer to commit more seriously to theatrical play, especially as Netflix moves closer to finalizing its acquisition of Warner Bros.. Once that deal closes, Netflix will inherit long-standing theatrical obligations to filmmakers.

This moment also lands amid shifting messaging from Netflix leadership. Following the success of KPop Demon Hunters, Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos previously emphasized that first-run movies remain a priority for the streaming platform.

More recently, after Netflix firmed up its Warner Bros. bid, Sarandos struck a more theatrical-friendly tone, 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.”

Sources suggest Netflix has pushed for a 17-day window, while major circuits like AMC argue the line needs to stay closer to 45 days to protect the theatrical ecosystem.

The Stranger Things finale began screening at 5 PM EST on New Year’s Eve and ran throughout New Year’s Day. Netflix doesn’t report box office numbers or concession revenue, so much of the picture comes from exhibitor disclosures.

One of the most detailed came from Adam Aron, Chairman and CEO of AMC Entertainment, who shared the following statement:

“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 theaters, 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. theaters, 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 theater 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.”

Whether this becomes a one-off experiment or a turning point remains to be seen, but Stranger Things just proved that when the right event hits at the right moment, movie theaters can still feel electric and very profitable, even without selling a single ticket.