National Cinema Day 2023 Draws 8.5M Admissions, +5% Over 2022 After ‘Gran Turismo’ & ‘Barbie’ Drag-Out Fight – Early Look

deadline.com:

National Cinema Day did 8.5 million admissions we hear off of a Sunday total day box office that’s estimated around $34M. All tickets for all movies and showtimes were $4 vs.

last year’s $3. Note this figure could go up later today once final numbers are tabulated. Last year’s National Cinema Day drew 8.1M.

The exhibitor celebratory day to get people back in seats fell on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend last year. The whole gist behind National Cinema Day was to drive people to movie theaters in order to shake off their COVID jitters and to drive attendance to movie houses when there was no product in them.

This year was different: A lot of tentpoles with Warner Bros.’ sixth weekend of Barbie at $15.1M warring with Sony’s first wide weekend of Gran Turismo ($17.4M) after the latter included nine days of advance sneak previews in their opening Friday.