• by Wayne Friedman , August 21, 2023

The movie industry is offering steeply discounted movie tickets -- $4 for movies on August 27 -- under what it bills as National Cinema Day.

Moviegoers can access 3,000 movie cinema locations -- totaling more than 30,000 screens -- for all formats, including Imax.

A year ago, the marketing push included three of the biggest owners of movie theaters -- AMC Entertainment, Regal Cinemas and Cinemark -- at a special admission price of $3 or less on that day.

The initial National Cinema Day in 2022 pulled in 8.1 million visitors to movie theaters across the country, according to Cineworld Group, parent company of Regal.

This year, movies that are expected to be available include all major summer hits as well as some new movie openings -- “Barbie,” “Oppenheimer,” “Blue Beetle,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” “Elemental” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” -- as well as yet to debut “Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story.”

There will also be classic re-releases offerings: “Jurassic Park (3D)” “American Graffiti” and “Lady Bird.” 

This year, season-to-date, U.S. movie box-office revenues are up 24 % versus a year ago to $6.4 million. 

But it is still down 15% from 2019 results. This summer’s mega hits -- including “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” have helped close to the gap to the 2019 results -- a pre-pandemic year.