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 than Cinema Week had previously announced in March.
Events include Community Day, where theaters will host more than 6,500 underserved youth at free Sat. morning showings of Sony’s Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, presented by the Independent Cinema Alliance.
Most cinemas are offering unlimited popcorn all week, there’s a Family Day on Sunday, and special loyalty club member rewards and prizes on Monday. Cinema Week is also helping to market a handful of event screenings, most but not all previously planned.
Creator and organizer Brandon Jones of Dallas-based marketing agency FilmFrog acknowledged the event is “a fraction” of National Cinema Day — the recent push led by NATO’s nonprofit Cinema Foundation that offered a day of $3 tickets and concessions Sat,, Sept. 3. Cinema Week is based at smaller regional chains, neither AMC nor Regal are participating.
Cinema Week offers few free tickets but will make the most hay it can out of new releases that week, from Lyle to David O. Russell’s Amsterdam to Tár with Cate Blanchett, as well as event releases. These include Terrifier 2 and A Silent Voice – 5th Anniversary (Iconic Releasing); Billy Joel Live at Yankee Stadium (Trafalgar Releasing); Scream 2 – 25th Anniversary (Fathom Events); The Retaliators (CineLife Entertainment); and lots of Halloween. The original film, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (CineLife Entertainment) will segue into previews of Universal’s Halloween Ends on Thursday, Oct. 13.
Jones, a former Studio Movie Grill executive, is also a partner in movie theater group Cinema Lab.
Participating exhibitors include Cinemark, Marcus, B&B Theaters, National Amusements, Studio Movie Grill, CMX Cinemas and others. Dolby and Cinionic are leading sponsors. Paramount and Lionsgate are also involved with the studios’ plans still TBA, Jones said,
He said the 2021 inaugural event exceeded expectations with 15.5M tickets sold, 10B earned media impressions and 20M in-theater impressions.