The Movie Theatre Association of Canada and The Cinema Foundation have partnered with theatre chains across the country to kick off National Cinema Day on September 3rd.
This inaugural cinephile holiday will offer all movies, showtimes and formats at $3 plus tax. This includes more expensive ticketed events like IMAX and VIP at Cineplex, Landmark, Cinemas Guzzo, Cinémas Ciné Entreprise, Imagine Cinemas, Magic Lantern Theatres and a variety of local independent theatres. Cineplex says its recently launched $1.50 online purchasing fee will also not apply to National Cinema Day tickets.
It should be noted that National Cinema Day comes as the box office is in a slump amid a quiet release calendar. After a solid summer movie season fuelled by the likes of Top Gun: Maverick, Thor: Love and Thunder and Minions: The Rise of Gru, there hasn’t been any major release in the past few weeks.
Instead, recent releases include the horror movie The Invitation (starring Game of Thrones‘ Nathalie Emmanuel), the thriller Beast (starring Idris Elba), the anime movie Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and the action-comedy Bullet Train (starring Brad Pitt). The box office is so slow right now that Top Gun: Maverick may very well top it again this week, even over three months after first hitting theatres.
Still, if there’s a movie you haven’t seen or even want to rewatch (for example, Sony has re-released Spider-Man: No Way Home with 11 minutes of extra footage), then National Cinema Day could be a good Saturday outing.
Ahead of September 3rd, though, Cineplex is running another promotion until September 1st that offers tickets at Tuesday discount pricing.
Image credit: Paramount
Source: The Movie Theatre Association of Canada
Correction: 31/08/2022 at 11:50am ET — Cineplex has reached out to MobileSyrup to clarify that its $1.50 processing fee on online tickets will not apply to National Cinema Day purchases. This story previously said that it would. We’ve updated accordingly.
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