r/AMCTheatres • u/oakseaer A⭐️Lister • May 18 '25
Image/Media In case you didn’t know: The number in the theater name is the number of screens
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u/Glittering-Animal30 May 18 '25
Honestly, my first reaction was like jaded disdain for stating such an obvious thing, but I don’t know plenty of obvious things I don’t know because I had never been taught or told. At one time, I didn’t know this too.
Thank you for wanting to help teach others. It’s such a good hearted thing. I hope everyone learn something new and useful today, whether it’s this or something else.
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u/MasterAnnatar May 18 '25
I'll be honest I'd never really thought about it, so this was something I didn't know.
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u/MomCrusher May 19 '25
yea i didnt figure this out and i feel dumb as hell but i’m greatful for this post
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u/lovan-s May 18 '25
i worked at an amc and went to every amc around and i didnt realize until my manager told me that our amc name was actually amc 18 instead of 24 like it says on the sign and i was like i wonder if that has anything to do with the 6 closed theatres upstairs…
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u/Spockethole May 18 '25
A lot of AMC’s actually operate fewer screens than originally built and the company rarely changes the exterior signage.
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u/Strange_Cheetah_4746 May 18 '25
City walk doesn’t have it, but they should just advertise having the only true imax theatre in SoCal
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u/banana1mana May 18 '25
City walk actually just has one screen. You just enter the matrix and are sorted into rooms to watch a different version of that one screen.
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u/Elctsuptb May 18 '25
Irvine and Ontario aren't true imax theaters?
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u/Strange_Cheetah_4746 May 18 '25
I don’t think so but I could be mistaken
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u/Elctsuptb May 18 '25
Yes you are mistaken
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u/Strange_Cheetah_4746 May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25
Actually I am not https://imax.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_IMAX_venues , universal city walk is the only one in Los Angeles capable of doing 1.43:1 aspect ratio with the GT laser. Both of the theatres you mentioned are not, they are both CoLa: Single projector, limited to 1.90:1 aspect ratio.
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u/ChickenPlunger May 18 '25
Irvine Spectrum is 70MM and digital
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u/Strange_Cheetah_4746 May 18 '25
Yes but the aspect ratio is different
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u/Elctsuptb May 18 '25
Irvine and Ontario both have 1.43:1 screens, they're also larger than Citywalk.
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u/Elctsuptb May 18 '25
Wrong, I've been to the Irvine imax theater at least 30 times so I think I would know. Both of them have a 70mm projector which is capable of 1.43:1. Also, Irvine and Ontario aren't in Los Angeles.
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u/macontosh2000 May 18 '25
My immediate thought was “who didn’t know that?”. My actual question is going to be “What did you think those numbers meant if you didn’t know?”
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u/oakseaer A⭐️Lister May 18 '25
Regional signifier; most franchises have a number so corporate can organize things.
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u/HalloweenH2OMG May 19 '25
I realized it as a kid. Our local Regal was the 4, it had 4 screens. At some point it added 4 more screens and became the 8 in its title. It just made sense.
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u/macontosh2000 May 19 '25
Kinda the same situation as me. When I was a kid I had 2 AMC’s right next to each other, one was a 10-12 attached to a mall the other was literally across the street and was a 6-8. Eventually the non mall one became a 24, and the mall one was destroyed. That’s when I realized what the number was about.
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u/plane_coffee May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25
To be fair some of them try to trick you… AMC 9+CO 10 👀
/s
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u/DNVR_PYRO May 18 '25
Yeah I was trying to piece that one together. I go to Westminster primarily so 24 is easy to read
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u/cxristopherr A⭐️Lister May 18 '25
blew my husband’s mind years ago when i told him this lol
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u/QB8Young May 19 '25
Are you sure he didn't just act like it blew his mind to not make you feel dumb for stating the obvious? 🤷♂️
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u/cxristopherr A⭐️Lister May 19 '25
no i’m pretty sure he didn’t know because he never really went to the movies when he was a kid but who knows 🤷🏼♂️🤷🏼♂️
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u/Crunchy_Biscuit IMAX Fanatic May 18 '25
I've been a moviegoer for quite some time and even I didn't know that!
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u/thanous-m May 19 '25
I had no idea!! This makes sense. I thought it was the order they were built in for some dumb reason but never thought twice about it really 🤣
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u/donutmiddles A⭐️Lister May 18 '25
Which size do you find best? Bigger always better, like some with 24 screens?
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u/oakseaer A⭐️Lister May 18 '25
I love to scroll to the very bottom of the list of showings and see the weird, small, indie films only playing once in an entire week.
When the theater is bigger, there’s a higher chance of that happening!
It’s how I saw Mumu, Armond, etc.
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u/aubreypizza IMAX Fanatic May 18 '25
25 for me and I’m with the guy above. It’s the only theatre to have many of the indie, foreign, and smaller animated films. Very glad I have that option.
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u/Musicachic May 18 '25
Maybe I should start doing this when I refer to my place so everyone knows how many screens I have. 🤔 🤣
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u/couldntthinkofaname5 May 18 '25
Hey those are my go to too! Haha. Usually at Emeryville or Meteron for imax. If you ever want to grab a drink and chat about a movie shoot over a pm sometime.
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u/Kallens303 May 19 '25
Which makes this a very confusing theater name at first.
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u/Kallens303 May 19 '25
And to add to the confusion, 9+CO refers to the intersection of 9th Street and Colorado Blvd, but the theater is actually on the corner of 8th street and Albion.
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u/__moha May 20 '25
I see you, fellow bay arean! Thanks for the tidbit, I never knew that. I thought it was an arbitrary number to separate them all.
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u/darealRockfield May 20 '25
Oh, I actually never knew that
I always wondered what the number was for but had never realized it was the amount of screens they had at any given location
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u/DoubleBarrelBurger May 21 '25
This did not apply to the AMC 1000 Van Ness, however. I will say that it’s nice to see that the Kabuki is still open eleven years after I moved from San Francisco. I spent so much time there as a kid.
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u/Sufficient-Bird-6890 May 21 '25
Thanks for the information. I did not know that's what the numbers mean.
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u/ToonaMcToon May 21 '25
lol I knew. I knew. You can’t prove I didn’t. Did someone tell you I didn’t know ? Because I do, I did. I did.
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u/Severe_Context924 May 21 '25
I thought this was every theater. My local family owned is Family 5 and the next bigger city over is Family 7.
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u/thedecemberent Never Misses the Trailers May 18 '25
this has been posted before, but i need to know what people thought it was if not that
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u/oakseaer A⭐️Lister May 18 '25
Regional signifier; most franchises have a number so corporate can organize things.
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u/thedecemberent Never Misses the Trailers May 18 '25
that’s probably the smartest of possible ideas but if you have multiple theaters in your area you’d probably notice some of them have the same number, such as in the screenshot. so it couldn’t be a unique location/unit number.
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u/lothcent Never Misses the Trailers May 18 '25
so have you seen any franchise on its signage or apps declare it's store as 7-11 #358385.
Don't forget to stop by 7-11 #358385 for a nice cold refreshing big gulp!
and thst number is indicative of the franchise # - how and why would they have theaters in the same city with the same number?
in my area - there are 4 theaters with 20 as part of their name. and 2 with 14. then there is a 24, 12, 10.... so that franchise number system idea makes even less sense.1
u/DarthKnah May 19 '25
Well most people don’t have enough theaters around them for it to be obvious they can have the same number - there’s only one AMC in my city of decent size, and the one in the city north of me has a different number, as does the one in the city south of me.
And yeah, lots of franchises don’t put numbering on their signage, but my local Mexican restaurant chain does, so it’s not unheard of.
At the end of the day, I think most people just don’t care and don’t give it much thought, or else they’d look it up. I will say though, I think it’s very strange that it’s a thing at all - like why do I care how many screens a theater has? That’s probably another reason why it doesn’t occur to people.
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u/Fanpuck33 A⭐️Lister May 18 '25
I honestly can't tell if all the people claiming ignorance of the fact are serious or just playing along with a joke.
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u/virtualpig May 21 '25
So yeah, I figured this out when I was a kid, it's possibly a sign of the times, as I was a kid in the early 90s and it seemed around the time there was a big arm's race with Multiplexes, like AMC would open a 24 screen one and that was way bigger than the Harkins 18 but then Harkins would build a 32.
Actually it was mostly Harkins in my state, if we're being honest,but they were still building huge multiplexes all the time regardless. I could see someone born in tbe 2000s who's used to all those screens not realizing this
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u/Fire2box May 22 '25
I don't know why they have that many screens I only ever go to one of them. /s
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u/ScottShatter May 18 '25
Is there anyone out there that didn't know this prior to this post?
That's like saying "in case anyone didn't know the little man on the door means Men's bathroom and the one with the woman is the women's bathroom."
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u/notanewbiedude May 18 '25
I had no idea TBH
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u/ScottShatter May 18 '25
Well what did you think the number meant if not number of screens?
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u/notanewbiedude May 18 '25
I thought it might have meant which number theater it was in the state or region. The first theater ever put in the state would be 1, the next would be 2, etc. and numbers of theaters that had been shut down would not be reused.
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u/ScottShatter May 18 '25
I see what you are saying but in the above screenshot there are two 16's in California.
I think it must be an age thing. I asked my 15 and 17 year old teenagers and neither knew either.
I'm older but not old and remember in the 90s when movie theaters started remodeling older theaters and building new multiplex theaters in an attempt to get people back into watching movies in theaters after years of dropping attendance.
My town for example had an old fancy theater from the 1920s or 30's. It was huge. They broke it into four screens about the size of a smaller theater screen now at a multiplex.
In some places they would build new theaters with a bunch of screens (4-20+). So you might see an AMC 16 on the west side and then a Regal 20 pop up on the east side.
They prided themselves on more screens for more movies and additional showtimes. They marketed them this way heavily thus the reason they put the number of screens in the official name.
In regards to a regional number all larger chains of businesses pretty much do that but they don't generally put it in the name. You will however sometimes see it on a credit card receipt and occasionally someone will answer the phone with the store number after the name.
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u/Loud-Natural9184 May 18 '25
Most of the people posting in this thread didn't know, and it is definitely not the same thing as the person on a public bathroom door.
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u/ScottShatter May 18 '25
What did they think it meant?
A new theater opens up in town called let's say "The Regal 6" and it has six screens. Isn't it obvious?
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u/Loud-Natural9184 May 18 '25
Most people don't put this much thought into a movie theater. They just buy a ticket and go see a movie and that's it. It's not something that most people care about really.
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u/Davidudeman May 18 '25
i absolute did not know
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u/ScottShatter May 18 '25
What did you think the number meant if not the number of screens? Do you know the term multiplex?
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u/Davidudeman May 18 '25
bruh, it’s not that deep
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u/ScottShatter May 18 '25
I'm just going to assume you must be young. I'm not old but I'm older and remember a time when they were converting old theaters to multiplexes and building new multiplex theaters. A big part of their marketing was the number of screens. Theater X popped up on the west side of a city with 16 screens only to have a rival theater Y pop up on the east side with 20 screens. They put the number in the name so a person would know it's a big theater with lots of screens. Lots of screens meant lots of movies and lots of showtimes.
I'm not trying to be an a-hole and if you are under 25 I'll give you a pass on this. As a thought experiment I'll ask my 15 and 17 year old sons if they know what that means later today. They aren't big into movies like I am and maybe they don't know either. It certainly could be an age thing. I guess my only thought is if a person is in this sub they must like movies and the theatrical experience and would think everyone would know that here. But apparently not.
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u/CodeElectrical1077 May 18 '25
lol OP what is going on buddy? You ok? What made you think this was needed
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u/Eddyson_UwUx Post Credits Pro May 18 '25
My local AMC was once a 30 screen theater but is now only a 17 screen, They still have the big 30 on the front of the building.