Cinema tickets will be slashed to an affordable €4 on Saturday (September 2nd) for National Cinema Day now supported by Screen Ireland.
The initiative will include premium seats and 3D screenings.
The inaugural National Cinema Day last year was the biggest day of the year for cinema admissions in Ireland which reached five times the daily average by selling 200,000 tickets.
Participating cinemas include: Arc, Carrick Cineplex, Century, Cineworld, Eclipse, Eye Cinema, Gate Cinema, Irish Film Institute, IMC, Light House Cinema, Movies@, Odeon, Omniplex, Pálás Cinema, Reel, and Vue.
The summer release of Barbie was a massive shot in the arm for the flagging flicks as it became the highest-grossing film of all-time at the Irish box office.
It took in more than €8.8m, and Oppenheimer, which has made a further €5.6m, leading to the ”Barbenheimer” memes and hashtag.
Ireland has one of the highest rates of cinema attendance in Europe, with 3.3 admissions per capita in 2019, and one screen per 10,000 people.
Cinema admissions in Ireland fell from 15.1m in 2019 to 3.8m in 2020 during the pandemic before recovering slightly to 5.8m in 2021.
“Screen Ireland is proud to support National Cinema Day this year. We join with the wider industry in thanking audiences for their continued support of Irish film and loyal cinema-going,” said Désirée Finnegan, chief executive of Screen Ireland.
“The support from Irish audiences has made the incredible success of Irish film in the past year possible. We’re delighted to promote the Irish films available to choose from as part of this initiative – and we hope audiences around the country will have a wonderful experience connecting with those stories on the big screen.”
In addition to Barbie and Oppenheimer, Irish cinemas will also be showing Irish titles such as Patrick Kielty-starring Ballywalter and comedy Apocalypse Clown this weekend.
Popular international titles include The Equalizer 3, The Blackening, Passages, The Meg 2: The Trench, Theater Camp, Gran Turismo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Blue Beetle, Strays and Haunted Mansion.
