Destin Rave to be purchased by AMC Entertainment

Ownership of the Rave Motion Pictures in Destin is changing hands, but the movie-going experience will remain the same.

“We are keeping the local management and teams,” said Andy DiOrio, director of corporate communications for AMC Entertainment Inc., noting that it should be business as usual at the Rave.

AMC, which operates more than 300 theaters in the United States, has an agreement in place to purchase the Rave Motion Pictures theater at Destin Commons, as well as three other Rave theaters in Montgomery, Ala., and Baton Rouge, La, according to a press release.

Combined, the four theatres will add 61 all-digital screens, with 46 percent of those being 3D capable, to AMC’s lineup that already boasts 4,804 screens nationwide.

“We are pleased to add these four theaters to our quality fleet of locations, and this is a natural progression of business that we anticipated following our own acquisition by the Wanda Group,” AMC CEO and president Gerry Lopez said in a statement. “With this strategic acquisition, we are adding new markets to our footprint and serving a new audience in the South and Southeast.”

Currently, the nearest AMC theater is in Tallahassee, though they own more than a dozen theaters in the peninsula.

DiOrio told The Log that the purchase should be completed by the end of the year, adding that it wasn’t yet clear if there would be any renaming or rebranding of the theater.

“These are great theaters,” he said.

The purchase price was not available.

Destin’s Rave Motion Pictures opened in 2003. While they are not part of this deal, there are two Rave Motion Picture theaters in Pensacola.

Destin Commons General Manager Bob Perry told The Log in an email that he wasn’t aware of the sale and differed comment to Rave.