Box office analytics firm EntTelligence which is monitoring 13.5 million seats in over 100K showtimes for Sunday’s National Cinema Day is currently seeing that day’s presales outstripping Saturday by more than 700%.
The second annual National Cinema Day will see all movies on Sunday selling for $4, for all showtimes and formats.
Last year’s National Cinema Day brought in an attendance of 8M, but that was on a Saturday last year, and it was during Labor Day weekend when there weren’t many marquee films. Saturday last year repped 76% of the Friday-Sunday 10.5 million admissions for Sept. 2-4, 2022.
The questions this year on National Cinema Day, which is driven by the National Association of Theatre Owners, is will the box office be flat from Saturday to Sunday? Also, with more premium fare out there like Barbie, Oppenheimer, Gran Turismo and Blue Beetle, will the box office truly see a huge surge on Sunday. Last year that was the case between Friday and Saturday with pics like Top Gun: Maverick and Bullet Train seeing respective Friday-to-Saturday jumps of +26% and +117%.
Other stats that EntTelligence is seeing from National Cinema Day:
–There’s roughly 800k more available seats for purchase on Sunday compared to Saturday. This means that exhibitors are programming more titles on Sunday over Saturday, and extending their hours.
–There’s strong matinee performance currently on Sunday with 41% of sales occurring between 1PM-5PM and 28% of sales occurring during 5PM-9PM.
–Top selling markets currently in order for National Cinema Day are LA, NYC, Toronto, San Francisco, and Vancouver. Cineplex is part of NATO.
–Premium format tickets are repping 14% of Sunday’s sales currently.
–The $4 ticket on Sunday reps a 66% general admission discount compared to Saturday when the average national ticket price is going for $11.88. On Saturday, Aug. 26, the national average ticket price for a premium format show is $16.17, while the average ticket price in LA is $13.62, while in NYC it’s $15.07.
