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Source: The Hollywood Reporter
If the intention of National Cinema Day, a special event held by the National Association of Theater Owners’ nonprofit branch The Cinema Foundation, was to get as many people into the seats of their local cineplex as possible, then it’s safe to say that this mission was effortlessly accomplished, perhaps far more than even the most optimistic predictions had anticipated. It didn’t take much to bring people in – all that was promised was tickets for a price no greater $3 each (as well as several other discounts for concessions depending on the theater chain), and for many, that was more than enough. It’s currently estimated that over 8 million people took part in National Cinema Day on Saturday, September 3rd and purchased tickets for at least one screening at the theater nearest to them, giving theaters the highest attendance of any day of the year so far (for comparison, the previous day only saw an overall attendance of 1 million; the day after, only 1.7 million). Granted, this most recent Labor Day weekend as a whole still suffered in comparison to those of the past; the four-day period saw a total revenue of only $68 million, far lower than previous Labor Day weekends that saw much larger grosses. For many though, the goal for Saturday wasn’t necessarily to see how much money was made so much as it was how many tickets could be sold, and at least in this regard, there’s much to be happy about.
Bookending the summer film-going season at the top of the box office was Paramount’s “Top Gun: Maverick”, which has blown past expectations to become the highest-grossing film of the year so far. Upon its release in theaters during Memorial Day weekend, the film took in over $160 million during the four-day period, much higher than many had been expecting. That alone would be enough to deem “Top Gun: Maverick” a surprise success, but in the week’s since, the film has held strong even with the arrival of such competition as Universal’s “Jurassic World Dominion” and Marvel’s “Thor: Love and Thunder”. That successful streak reared its head once more as the film took advantage of National Cinema Day and returned to the top of the box office, making $7.9 million between Friday, September 2nd and Monday, September 5th. This might be the lowest gross of any film to top the Labor Day weekend box office in recent memory, but it was enough to bring “Top Gun: Maverick” past the $700 million mark in terms of domestic sales and make it the fifth highest grossing film in the nation of all time (its worldwide total, meanwhile, currently sits at $1.4 billion). Although many factors can be cited as being instrumental in the unexpected success of “Top Gun: Maverick”, the overwhelmingly positive reception from critics and audiences seems to be the most prominent, with such favorable word of mouth encouraging people to not only see the film, but for some, to do so more than once. Such is a huge sigh of relief for distributor Paramount Pictures, which has struggled to compete with the other major studios over the past few years but has seen a recent resurgence thanks to “Top Gun”, as well as other surprise hits like “The Lost City” and “Sonic the Hedgehog 2”.
“Top Gun: Maverick” was not the first film to claim the top spot for Labor Day weekend though. Before the official results were declared, it was Sony’s re-release of “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, which added eleven minutes of additional material to what was originally shown in theaters, that declared itself to be the victor of the four-day period. According to Sony, the film was estimated to receive $7.6 million between that Friday and Monday, but as it turned out, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” only accumulated $6.6 million over that period. Not only was this not enough to take the #1 spot, but it wasn’t even enough to take the #2 spot; that honor went to another film released by Sony, the Brad Pitt-starring action vehicle “Bullet Train”, which came in just under “Top Gun: Maverick” with $7.3 million over the course of those four days.
If one were to look solely at per-theater averages, then the true victor of the holiday weekend might be not any of the aforementioned releases, but a re-release of a film that initially debuted over four decades prior. That film is Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic “Jaws”, which returned to 1,246 theaters and was shown in either the IMAX or Real-D 3-D formats. Swimming into the box office charts at #8 spot, “Jaws” earned around $3.3 million over the four-day period; this averages to about $2,685 per theater, higher than any other film over the same period of time (for comparison, “Top Gun: Maverick”, which topped the box office but played in more theaters, had a per-theater average gross of around $2,544).
It wasn’t all action films aimed mainly at adult audiences that lured people to their local theaters though. Family films, for example, were the ideal remedy for children and their guardians looking to escape the summer heat by any means possible, and of the family films that could be seen at the theaters in operation during Labor Day weekend, it was Warner Brothers’ animated superhero comedy “DC League of Super-Pets” that triumphed over all others. Coming in at the #4 spot at the weekend box office, the film earned $6.4 million over the four-day period, bringing its domestic gross to about $81.7 million and its worldwide gross to around $160.4 million.
Given how many of the films ranking highly at the Labor Day weekend box office had already been out for at least a few months (or in the case of “Jaws”, well over several decades), it’s safe to say that this year’s holiday weekend has been unconventional to say the least. Of course, that’s largely due to how much National Cinema Day had altered people’s film-going habits for one day if nothing more. While grosses could only be so high when tickets are going for no higher than $3 (much lower than the current national average of around $12), it’s doubtful that nearly as many people would go to their local theater if that wasn’t the case. Anyone who saw a film at their local cineplex on September 3rd could tell you that $3 tickets was an effective way of getting audiences to come in in large hoards, and according to Cinema Foundation president Jackie Brenneman, it’s possible that the event will be repeated in the coming years. “This event outstripped our biggest expectations,” Jackie Brenneman claims. “The idea of the day was to thank moviegoers for an amazing summer, and now we have to thank them for this amazing day.”
