On the heels of National Cinema Day, a smaller event that debuted last year, called National Cinema Week, has set Oct. 7-13 for its second annual push to celebrate moviegoing in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Over 1,200 theaters repping 12,00+ screens are participating and more may join. The dates are one week later
National Cinema Day
Labor Day weekend saw blockbusters old and new buoyed by cheap tickets, as was a limited openings like Saloum with multiple sold out screenings at two theaters, including every showtime on Saturday. Over 3,000 theaters, including IFC Center and Alamo Drafthouse LA, where the French-Senegalese indie film began a qualifying run, offered $3 tickets for
SATURDAY AM UPDATE: “Estimates aren’t worth a whole lot this morning thanks to the brilliant idea of National Cinema Day,” cried one industry source to us this morning. They were speaking about the challenges for studio box office analysts to peg exactly what’s going to be No. 1 over the 4-day holiday weekend. Despite all
National Cinema Day is underway with 3,000+ participating theaters (30,000 screens) offering $3 tickets, discounted concessions and a four and a half-minute preshow sizzle reel with peeks of upcoming titles from A24, Amazon Studios, Disney, Focus Features, Lionsgate, Neon, Paramount, Sony and Sony Pictures Classics, United Artists Releasing, Universal and Warner Bros. Trailers include Avatar 2:
A glum weekend box office overall (one of the worst of the year) wasn’t so awful for specialty, relatively speaking, with Breaking passing $1M on 900 screens and Spanish-language The Good Boss at $27K on 15. Both are a far cry from pre-pandemic numbers but did hit the new normal for limited releases – reaching