I was compiling my list of film entertainment stocks and ran across a couple of interesting facts about IMAX and AMC. 

1.) AMC Entertainment was scheduled to do an IPO in May of 2007.  It postponed that IPO, but according to some sources the company plans to go forward with an IPO in 2008.  The symbol will be AC.  AMC owns 27% of movietickets.com -- one of the premier online ticketing companies.  AMC will receive minimal proceeds from the sale of the stock as most of the money will go to the investment group which took AMC private.  The investment group will walk with about $469 million.  The investment group, led by JPMorgan, will likely own about 73% of the new company and control 8 out of 10 board seats.   AMC services $1.9 billion in long-term debt and has lost money for nine consecutive years totaling $512 million.  But with 5,300 screens, it remains a film distribution powerhouse right behind Regal Cinema (6,200 screens).  Annual revenue is estimated at $2.4 billion. 

2.)  I found this blurb as a Wall Street Journal article dated December 7, 2007:

The conversion from celluloid to digital continues to march on, part of the reason Imax shares spiked 58% today on news that AMC Entertainment planned on installing 100 Imax big-screen theaters by 2010 with Imax's new digital-projection system, expected to launch until next year. Imax officials say they've got plenty of room to expand, and it's hard to doubt that. The rousing reception for "Beowulf" - 13% of the film's $28 million opening-weekend box office came from 84 Imax screens (accounting for a mere 2.7% of the 3,153 screens the movie opened on), and more than 40% of the haul came from 740 digital 3-D screens - suggests that there's plenty of demand out there for this type of spectacle. (Unless they use it just to show Gigli or something.)  

I think IMAX is on to something and a partnership with AMC will be good for both companies.  Options trade on IMAX with an at-the-money implied volatility of around 80.