PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS
Early Movie Screenings Are Becoming Physical Gauntlets
Mission: Popcorn // Illustration by Kate Walker
Studios are increasingly hosting exclusive “challenge” screenings to raise awareness for small- and midsize movies.
The Hardcore Picture: In today’s culture, eventizing things is becoming the only way to get attention. While blockbusters can rely on scale, star power, and PLF screenings, smaller movies don’t typically have that kind of built-in awareness to break through the noise. Challenge screenings offer a fun marketing stunt that may get a movie on more people’s radar.
Behind The Challenges: Studios now really want you to experience their movies, according to Bloomberg.
Neon hosted a 36-hour screening of It Ends, pitting teams in private screening rooms against each other in a challenge of butt-numbing endurance… with a cash prize on the line.
Lionsgate put on a screening of The Long Walk that required moviegoers (mostly journalists and influencers) to walk on a treadmill at a pace of at least 3 mph (just like the characters in the movie) to keep watching.
Lionsgate came back for seconds with an influencer screening of Fall 2: Deadpoint, where audience members had to balance on wobbling, elevated wooden platforms.
Final Minute: Challenge screenings seem like an obvious evolution of 4DX screenings of big blockbusters — something that A24 even experimented with in 2024’s Heretic and Lionsgate did with this year’s The Housemaid. But the challenges provide a way to make people feel what the characters are feeling on screen (at least to a small degree) and create a social moment that can go viral.
Those are tenets that Briana McElroy, Lionsgate’s EVP for digital marketing, highlighted to Bloomberg, while underscoring that the real challenge is “creating an experience people genuinely want to talk about.”
These screenings tap into the reason people are obsessed with MrBeast videos — there’s something irresistible about an endurance test, especially when a prize is waiting at the end.
Coming Soon: It’s possible that some multiplexes may reserve a room that can be outfitted for various types of challenge screenings. Could this become a new, scalable PLF option?
Together with IXL
Back To School Doesn’t Have To Be A Scramble
Between supply lists, new schedules, and shaking off summer mode, the start of the school year can feel like a lot.
IXL makes the learning part easy.
Just 20 minutes a day keeps your child sharp in math, reading, science, and more, with lessons that adjust to exactly what they need.
It’s the same program used by one in four US kids and trusted in 95 of the top 100 school districts — and right now, it’s 25% off during their Back-to-School Sale.
Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.