Nicole Kidman's AMC Commercial

About

Nicole Kidman's AMC Commercial refers to a viral advertisement from September 2021 in which actress Nicole Kidman waxes rhapsodically about the magic of movie theaters for the theater chain AMC. The ad struck many as bizarre and uncanny, causing it to gain a cult following in the months after it was first posted, as well as being widely discussed on social media.

Origin

On September 8th, 2021, AMC posted a commercial starring Nicole Kidman in which Kidman speaks lovingly about movie theaters (shown below). In the ad, Kidman walks into an AMC theater, sits in an empty room and watches clips from films that were out at the time, including Jurassic World. On the AMC Theatres official YouTube channel, the video received over 193,000 views and 1,400 comments in roughly four months.

Spread

The commercial was quickly mocked by internet users after it aired on TV and was then shared online. The same day the ad was posted to YouTube, Twitter user @adamjmoussa^[1] tweeted, "the baffling Nicole Kidman AMC video has sent me into a tailspin," gaining over 40 retweets and 650 likes in four months (shown below, left). User @collinsapera^[2] joked, "when you die, Nicole Kidman watches your life in an empty AMC theater and determines your fate by pointing her thumb up or down," gaining six retweets and 115 likes in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

Despite the initial mockery, the commercial took on a cult following, as, over the following months, it began playing before films in AMC movie theaters. On December 13th, 2021, Redditor rpvee^[3] reported that when the ad played before a film in theaters, the audience started cheering and the man behind them recited it word for word. Twitter users reported similar experiences in the following months. On February 14th, 2022, Twitter user @iamwesley^[4] wrote, "I’ve been to 4 movies in the last 10 days and, at 3 of them, nearly sell-out crowds have recited the Nicole Kidman AMC commercial script like a sing-along" (shown below, left). On February 7th, user @alexwyse^[5] wrote, "if you're in an AMC and you don't give Nicole Kidman entrance applause when she steps in that puddle then you hate gays sorry folks I dont make the rules" (shown below, right).

On January 14th, 2022, while the ironic support for the ad was growing, Nicole Kidman gave an interview in which she described her surprise at the response to the ad (excerpt shown below).^[6] On February 15th, Mel Magazine wrote an article about the ad's cult following.^[7]

Various Examples

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External References