Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this — and it’ll feel even better in the iconic pinstriped suit from Nicole Kidman’s viral AMC ad.
One lucky fan may soon be able to own the ensemble, which was recently donated to luxury auction house Sotheby’s “Visions of America” series. The suit will be auctioned off later this month, with an estimated price range between $5,000 and $10,000.
Famously donned by Kidman, 56, in her viral pre-movie ad for AMC Theatres, the gray wool and cashmere suit features a sparkly pinstripe detail and was part of Michael Kors’ 40th-anniversary fall/winter 2021 collection. Following the ad’s release in 2021, the commercial became an internet sensation thanks to the Australian actress’s dramatic monologue about the experience of moviegoing.
“We come to this place for magic,” Kidman begins in the clip as she approaches an AMC multiplex. “We come to AMC Theatres to love, 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.”
The ad has since been shared and meme’d across the internet, and Kidman’s look has inspired plenty of Halloween costumes. Saturday Night Live even created a parody in 2022 with cast member Chloe Fineman starring as Kidman.
In November 2023, Kidman’s husband, country singer Keith Urban, said that neither he nor his wife expected the commercial to become such a cultural phenomenon. “She did it because we love movies, she loves movies and it was hard times for the theaters,” Urban, 56, told host Criss Angel on an episode of the podcast “Talking Junkies.”
He added that when AMC approached Kidman to do the commercial, it was “a no-brainer” for the actress to accept. “Never in a million years [was she] expecting that to be this cultural thing,” Urban said. “It’s crazy.”
The screenwriter behind the ad, Billy Ray, has since revealed that a sequel to the ad is in the works — and Kidman will reprise her performance. “I’m very, very excited about it. All I can tell you about it is we are not dumb enough to fly in the face of the one we’ve already done and try to top it,” Ray said in an August 2022 interview with Vanity Fair.
Ray also shared that Kidman asked him directly to write the original ad. “When Nicole first asked me to do it, I was just doing it as a favor,” he told the publication. “I said I would do it for free just because I’m a fan and a friend of hers.”
His agent ultimately convinced him not to write the script for free. “Nobody saw this coming,” Ray said of the virality of the ad. “Nobody.”
