KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - Movie theater operator AMC Entertainment (AEN) and entertainment Internet site company Hollywood.com said Wednesday that they formed a joint venture to sell movie tickets online.
The joint venture, called MovieTickets.com Inc. (http://movietickets.com) will also provide movie reviews, trailers, soundtracks, entertainment news and show times for 30,000 screens. The site will also serve as a "personal shopper" for users, recommending movies and products to suit each customer's personal profile.
Peter Brown, chairman and chief executive of AMC, and Mitchell Rubenstein, chairman and CEO of Hollywood.com, will serve as co-chairmen of the 50-50 joint venture. The MovieTickets.com site was expected to be launched over Memorial Day weekend.
Through the AMC theater circuit, MovieTickets.com will initially cover more than 70 percent of the major markets in the United States. Advertising sales on the site will be handled by a sales force of representatives from Hollywood.com and National Cinema Network.
AMC theaters and other circuits that join the service will promote MovieTickets.com with on-screen and in-lobby marketing programs and through their Web sites.
"This is the first important step in AMC's overall Internet strategy," AMC's Brown said in a statement. "Our theaters generate annual attendance of over 150 million people and the Internet offers significant potential to monetize the value of this traffic."
AMC operates 210 theaters with 2,868 screens in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Portugal, Spain and France. Its shares were up 1/8 at 9-1/4.
Hollywood.com owns Hollywood.com, an Internet movie site, Showtimes.com Inc., which provides online show time listings, Baseline, a movie information database, and other sites. Its stock was up 1 at 18.
Copyright 1999, Reuters News Service
