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This weekend, you have a chance to score some cheap movie tickets on the second annual National Cinema Day, a nationwide celebration of the theatrical experience and an encouragement to people to keep coming back to theaters.
In San Antonio, several chains will offer tickets for $4 each on Sunday, including Alamo Drafthouse, AMC, Regal Cinemas, Cinemark, and Santikos Entertainment, where tickets for even the biggest movies—including IMAX—are four dollars.
Andrew Brooks is the Executive Director of Sales and Marketing for Santikos, and says promotions like National Cinema Day double the number of walk up customers at their locations. They also offer an opportunity to bring some movies back to the big screen.
"'Super Mario Brothers' is a fantastic movie that opened up and did incredible, and we’re bringing it back," Brooks says.
"That is something we learned last year (and that NATOshared with us) ... last year, I think if there was one miss it’s that there wasn’t family films that were available. So this year... 'Elemental,' and 'Super Mario Bros.' of course Barbie, which is now the largest grossing film of the year, will be available."
"Barbie," along with the Christopher Nolan-directed biopic "Oppenheimer," have together brought audience numbers back to pre-pandemic levels, according to Brooks.
"We base everything… how we are doing, currently, off 2019. And right now we’re on a par with 2019, which is pretty incredible."
Santikos also recently acquired 17 theaters in seven states, and this month broke ground on a new real estate development, Roadrunner Creek, off of UTSA Blvd. Both ventures contribute toward Santikos' mission of giving back to the community through donating profits to the San Antonio Area Foundation. Brooks says the company is looking toward the future.
Even with studios shuffling titles around in the fall because of the Hollywood strikes, he hopes late summer films like "Gran Turismo" will keep up the audience momentum. A full list of participating theaters for $4 tickets this Sunday is at NationalCinemaDay.org.
