Nicole Kidman’s AMC ad is two years old, and just as beloved (and divisive) as ever

By Scottie Andrew, CNN

(CNN) — Since late 2021, filmgoers who flock to the altar of their local movie theater have borne witness to a kind of gospel: “We come to this place for magic.”

“We come to AMC Theaters to laugh, to cry,” to begin our cinematic journey with Nicole Kidman stomping through a puddle in stilettos and a sparkly pantsuit to sit in an empty cinema and marvel at “Jurassic World.”

The swelling melodrama of the now-iconic AMC commercial was initially embraced as a campy ode to movie magic and the power of pantsuits, capably sold by the Oscar-winning Kidman. Then, as people saw it over and over again, the ad became a meme. Audience members started reciting Kidman’s exhilarated monologue along with her, and its popularity jumped off-screen and grew.

Kidman and her AMC collaborators have admitted they didn’t expect the performance to be embraced as a campy work of art. Kidman’s husband Keith Urban even said in an interview with podcaster-slash-magician Criss Angel that Kidman was merely doing AMC a solid during “hard times for theaters” during the pandemic.

“(We) never in a million years expected it to be this cultural thing,” he said.

Now, the AMC spot is entering a new phase of cultural appreciation. It’s still playing two years later, delighting audiences who know the rapturous monologue by heart and mildly irritating those who just want the darn movie to start.

The campy ad has inspired memes, homages and debate

For those who appreciate the maudlin absurdity of theatre, the Kidman ad works because it’s a collection of seemingly incongruous parts.

There’s Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, dressed to the nines, strutting not onto a red carpet but into her local cineplex. She recites lines like “We go somewhere we’ve never been before — not just entertained, but somehow reborn” with complete integrity while a scene from “Wonder Woman” flashes before her eyes.

Not to mention, the ad for AMC almost only plays at AMC, to captive audiences halfway through their popcorn who need no additional persuasion to go to the movies, where they already are.

Since its debut in September 2021, when more and more audience members began to return to the theater after the prolonged drought of the early pandemic, people have fallen in love with the odd exultation.

Some audience members have been filmed standing throughout the spot and saluting Kidman through the screen. There have been innumerable parodies (including an infamous Lionsgate-produced ad for the most recent “Saw” movie), recreations (“RuPaul’s Drag Race” favorite Katya rocked a pantsuit to her local “Gay-MC Theaters”) and Halloween homages.

Some devotees on TikTok even made the pilgrimage to the suburban Los Angeles AMC location where Kidman filmed the ad to retrace her pointy-toed steps. When AMC dared to debut a shortened version of the ad, cutting the line “heartbreak feels good in a place like this,” viewers balked and prompted the company to restore the ad in its full, glorious form.

It’s also spawned merchandise and a possible sequel

AMC, eager to capitalize on the ad’s infamy, released an extensive line of merchandise printed with excerpts from Kidman’s monologue: There’s a baby onesie with the phrase “We come to AMC Theaters to laugh, to cry, to care,” with the word “cry” cheekily formatted in bold. One shirt even dubs the monologue “The Pledge” and features the entire script on the back so passersby can read it and be moved.

In November, AMC announced a collaboration with Loungefly, a company that produces merchandise tailored for all kinds of fandoms. The result is a sparkly pin-striped mini backpack with double-breasted buttons and a little collar – proof that the commercial is now so widely known, it can be reduced to just a silhouette and a suggestion.

Two years after it first premiered, the ad is at the point where it will either be run into the ground, or ascend to some higher theatrical plane. Some audiences are souring on its ubiquity, claiming it’s lost its luster after countless parodies, including a “Saturday Night Live” sketch and an appearance in Jimmy Kimmel’s Oscars monologue earlier this year. Since 2022, moviegoers on Reddit have been polling each other on whether the ad is an obnoxious waste of time.

Movie theaters, meanwhile, are still struggling to convince audiences to return in large numbers after the pandemic and the streaming boom, though hits like “Barbie” and “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” boosted 2023 summer box office numbers. Theaters are continuing to close, and the SAG-AFTRA strike’s restrictions on actors meant, for a time, Kidman was one of the only celebrities viewers would likely see ahead of a film.

But AMC is continuing to bet on the prolific star. Kidman renewed her deal with the company last year, and CEO Adam Aron even called her “The First Lady of AMC.” There’s a second Kidman ad in the works, he told Variety in May, which all but guarantees Kidman will greet audiences for years to come. Love them or hate them, it seems the immortal words of AMC’s pre-show gospel are on their way to movie history.

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