The New Nicole Kidman AMC Ad Triology? It Was A Lie! It Was All A Lie!!
We were promised a sequel. Then a trilogy. In the end, we might have to settle with a director’s cut of the original.
“The truth is, everybody doesn’t have to like what you do for you to be successful with it,” Keke Palmer recently tweeted. “It really doesn’t matter who hates it lol, it matters who likes it. There is an audience for anything so please, keep doing your thing.”
I’d like to believe she was referring to the cultural phenomenon that was and continues to be Nicole Kidman’s AMC ad, a rare moment of branding-meets-zeitgeist with enough cultural resonance that when AMC began showing a shortened version before movies, a version that cut out the famous “heartbreak feels good in a place like this” line, crowds booed and a Change.org petition calling on the company to #RELEASETHEKIDMANCUT was birthed. “I can’t tell you why it worked or why it’s gone viral,” Kidman told GQ in March 2022. “But what I can tell you is that the reaction is a direct result of the amount of people going back to theaters to enjoy the movies. And that is exciting.”
It is exciting. Or rather, it was. In August 2022, nearly a year after its release, a sequel was first announced. “It’s already written,” the ad’s writer confirmed. Months passed. Not a peep. Then the two-year anniversary of the ad came and went. And then the third anniversary… still nothing. We started to adjust our expectations, recognizing that maybe we’d been hoodwinked.
So what’s catapulted the ad back into our collective consciousness some three and a half years later? After this September headline from moi — I'm Worried We're Never Getting the Sequel to Nicole Kidman's Viral AMC Ad — something seemed to have shifted when it was announced on February 28th that AMC would be releasing three new Nicole Kidman-led ads. It was the kind of announcement that propelled a litany of gays to type out responses like, “We won!” and, “Cinema is back, baby!” and, “I am SEATED.” To honor the occasion, AMC even rolled out a “pinstripe gear” section of their merch in an homage to the gray, pinstripe Michael Kors suit that started it all.
Then came the first of the trilogy on February 28, which was a boiled-down, 30-second version of the “We Make Movies Better” ad. The only problem? It wasn’t really new, but rather mostly re-edited and condensed footage from the original with a bit of new lyrics ADR’d in and a single new frame in which Kidman turns to the camera and says — or rather whispers — “That’s magic.” It’s iconic in the way that everything Nicole Kidman does simply is, but it fell short of iconography, if you know what I mean.
The original:
We come to this place… for magic.
We come to AMC Theatres to laugh, to cry, to care.
Because we need that, all of us.
That indescribable feeling we get when the lights begin to dim.
And we go somewhere we've never been before.
Not just entertained, but somehow reborn. Together.
Dazzling images, on a huge silver screen.
Sound that I can feel.
Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place likе this.
Our heroes feel like thе best part of us, and stories feel perfect and powerful.
Because here, they are.
The edit:
We come to this place… to laugh, to cry, to care.
That indescribable feeling when the lights begin to dim.
Dazzling images, on a huge silver screen.
Beautiful music soaring through.
And we go somewhere we’ve never been before.
That’s magic.
The result? Something akin to E!’s sexless, fully censored version of Sex and the City. Fans (I’m fans, btw) were appropriately incensed. Then came a more thorough read of CEO Adam Aron’s original promise. “Before every movie starts, and starting March 1, we’re going to show three different, 30-second Nicole Kidman commercials before the movie starts on a rotating basis,” Aron said. Then, the fine print: A spokesperson later clarified that the spots are not “new ads or sequels” but “never-before-seen-in-theaters versions of the original, iconic ad.” In other words, we’d been bamboozled not by AMC, but by clickbait headlines.
Rolling Stone: “Nicole Kidman to Reprise Her Most Iconic Role: AMC Theatres Spokesperson.” To quote Countess Luann: “Not really.” Mashable: “More magic and heartbreak: AMC is launching 3 new Nicole Kidman ads.” To quote Dakota Johnson: “No, that’s not the truth.” The only headline to really get it right was The Mary Sue: “Nicole Kidman's New AMC Theatres Ads Aren't Exactly New, But We'll Take It.” I suppose we’ll take it. But are we taking it? If anything, we have to wonder what it will take to get our beloved Aussie back in her pinstripe suit. I wish I had the answers. Before, we had hope and a promise. Now, I’m not so sure. I can’t stomach that when the ad’s writer mentioned that the follow up “had been written,” he was referring to the line, “That’s magic.” It can't be. What a colossal missed opportunity. Like not making a third Scooby-Doo film. And yet AMC seems to have proven that they're appearance as “in on the joke” was all for show. They want the glory without the guts. WIthout the gumption. Without the zazz.
Unforgivable.