US cinema-owner AMC Entertainment has named Edwin Gladbach as interim general counsel after long-time GC Kevin Connor announced his retirement.

Gladbach steps up from his current role as vice president for legal, which he has held for the past 16 years. AMC said it would select its next GC later in the year, adding that it was considering Gladbach for the position as well as external candidates. Gladbach will oversee all legal matters for the company in the meantime.

Leawood, Kansas-based AMC Entertainment is the world’s largest movie theatre company, with around 900 cinemas across the globe.

Adam Aron, AMC’s chairman and CEO, said the company’s legal department is in “extremely capable hands” under Gladbach’s interim leadership.

Gladbach joined AMC in 2009 from Interstate Bakeries, where he was a senior counsel. Prior to that he worked in private practice as an associate at Shook Hardy & Bacon.

Connor is retiring after 23 years with the company, having become GC in 2007. Prior to that he worked in private practice at Seigfreid Bingham Levy Selzer and Gee. At AMC, he has helped steer the company through a number of milestones, including its IPO in 2013 and its acquisition of European cinema giant Odeon/UCI in 2016.

Aron said: “I want to thank Kevin Connor for his more than two decades of dedicated service to AMC. We are a better company from his having guided our legal efforts these many years, and we wish him well as retirement sparks the next chapter of his life. We are equally grateful that Kevin has devoted considerable effort in training potential successors.”

Last March global cinema chain Cineworld appointed John Henrich from Sally Beauty as its first GC after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The cinema operator declared bankruptcy in 2022 as it struggled with a mounting debt pile and a general downturn in moviegoing that was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meantime, in the broader filmmaking business, last June Paramount Global parted ways with its GC Christa d’Alimonte following collapsed merger talks, promoting deputy Caryn Groce to acting GC. And last April, Sony Pictures Entertainment hired The Walt Disney Company’s deputy GC Jill Ratner as its new legal chief, replacing veteran GC Leah Weil.