Most people picture the movie business as a relay race. A studio pays to make a film, a distributor carries it to theaters, and the theater sells the tickets. Each runner hands off to the next. That picture is starting to change, and one of the biggest changes is coming from the last runner in the race.
At the end of August, AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: AMC), which runs the largest movie theater chain in the world, created its own distribution label called Leawood Films. The name comes from the Kansas suburb where the company keeps its headquarters. The label comes with one firm condition. It will work only with filmmakers who have already raised all the money for their film or who have a finished film in hand. It will not pay for production, develop scripts, or share the risk of making a movie. Chief executive Adam Aron described it as “a modestly scaled initiative.”
The reasoning is simple enough. A theater earns money when its seats are full, and many screens sit empty during slow weeks. AMC already knows it can fill them without a studio in the middle, having released a Taylor Swift concert film on its own in 2023. Leawood applies that experience to smaller dramas, comedies and independent films that often leave festivals without a distributor.
The label is not limited to AMC’s own theaters. It plans to book films into rival chains as well, working with Variance Films in North America and Piece of Magic Entertainment in other countries. The team includes Kyle Davies, a former distribution executive at Paramount and Bleecker Street, along with former Warner Bros. film chief Toby Emmerich and former Disney marketing head Ricky Strauss.
Some of the rules are already public. A film released through Leawood will play only in theaters for at least 45 days before it can be rented or bought at home, and at least 90 days before it reaches a subscription streaming service. Filmmakers keep ownership of their work, along with what AMC calls “the vast majority” of the money the film earns after it leaves theaters.
Other rules have not been shared, and they may matter more. AMC has not said who pays for prints and advertising, the marketing budget that decides whether audiences ever hear about a film. It has not named its fee, a minimum budget, or a way for filmmakers to submit their work. No titles have been announced in the weeks since the launch. AMC says it has not yet chosen its first films, so releases are unlikely before 2027 or 2028.
That gap says a lot about how the arrangement works. A traditional distributor usually buys a film and then plans how to sell it. Leawood expects the filmmaker to arrive with the money already raised and takes charge of only the theatrical run. What comes after that stays with the filmmaker. That includes video on demand, streaming deals, and the fees charged by aggregators, the companies that place independent films on digital storefronts.
This moves a lot of business work to the front of the process. A filmmaker who waits until the final edit to think about release costs may learn that the budget covered the shoot but not the launch. A release plan with real numbers also shows investors how a film is expected to earn back their money. Software aimed at independent producers has started to appear for this job. OGF AI, a subscription platform for independent filmmakers, is one example, with tools for distribution and self-distribution planning alongside pitch decks and festival strategy.
It is too early to say how many films will come through this new door, and the program may stay small. Still, the direction is clear. Theaters have screens to fill, and at least one major chain now wants to fill them with independent work. The filmmakers most likely to get through are the ones who show up with the money raised and the release worked out, whether a label calls or they book the theaters themselves.
