Movie theaters across the United States will be selling $3 tickets for National Cinema Day. This year's National Cinema Day, set for September 3, will be the first of its kind. National Cinema Day honors film-lovers and the film industry, which has gone through a bit of a rough patch during the past few years. The Covid-19 pandemic saw the shutdown of film productions and movie theaters alike starting in 2020, leading to a massive downturn in revenue.
With pandemic restrictions lifting across the US over the past several months, avid moviegoers have begun returning to theaters in eager droves. While the summer of 2022 has seen the release of some major films, including Top Gun: Maverick and Thor: Love and Thunder, the most recent box office numbers have been fairly disappointing. The past two weeks have been the worst box office weekends of 2022, with last weekend's total box office gross being only $54 million, and this weekend's being $52.7 million. As pandemic restrictions are no longer playing a key role in moviegoers not heading out to theaters, the reasoning behind these low numbers can likely be attributed to the films that are currently playing – or, perhaps, to the cost of movie tickets.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY
In an effort to bring more audience members back to theaters, National Cinema Day will see participating locations selling movie tickets for as low as $3. The initiative was announced by The Cinema Foundation (via Variety), which is a non-profit sect of the National Assocation of Theatre Owners. The $3 ticket event is the first moviegoing discount of a country-wide scale, and will include both chains and independent cinemas. The Cinema Foundation president, Jackie Brenneman, says that the discounted movie tickets will offer an incentive to get audiences back into theaters. Read Brenneman's full comment below:
“After this summer’s record-breaking return to cinemas, we wanted to do something to celebrate moviegoing. We’re doing it by offering a ‘thank you’ to the moviegoers that made this summer happen and by offering an extra enticement for those who haven’t made it back yet.”
National Cinema Day is set for the Labor Day weekend. The event also aligns perfectly with the release of the Spider-Man: No Way Home extended cut, which is set to be released on September 2. With the summer box office season beginning to slump, National Cinema Day hopes to pick ticket sales back up again ahead of major fall releases, like DC's Black Adam on October 21 and Avatar: The Way of Water on December 17.
With the box office numbers being so shockingly low over the past two weeks, a national incentive to get moviegoers back into theaters might be exactly what the film industry needs. As movie tickets start at around $10, getting a ticket for a theatrical release for only $3 is a massive discount – meaning audiences can see films like Top Gun: Maverick, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Invitation, and Beast for more than a 70% discount. Hopefully, the National Cinema Day initiative will be enough of an incentive to encourage audiences to flock to their local cinemas on September 3 to give the film industry the box office weekend it needs.