Johnstown, PA (WJAC) — Movie theaters all across the country, and right here in our area, are getting ready to celebrate National Cinema Day on Saturday September 3rd.

Last year, movie theaters celebrated Cinema Week as a way to get people back into the theaters, which featured exclusive content and events. This year, for the first time, theaters are celebrating National Cinema Day.

"Cinema day is a new one where they got all of the film companies to agree that we could charge only $3 per ticket on Saturday for all of the new movies," said Ed Troll, Owner of Richland Cinemas.

So for Saturday, September 3rd, only, movie theaters will be offering $3 tickets to all showings of the latest movies including Elvis, Top Gun: Maverick, Minions: Rise of Gru, and more. By doing this, officials say the goal is to bring more people back into the theaters, but over the summer they did see a rise in attendance.

"Over the summer, June and July were the first two months that we had attendance levels that matched pre-COVID times. August has slacked off a bit, but it's back to school time and it always depends on what Hollywood releases and stuff," explained Troll.

Troll says that movie releases through August and September are a little thin, but releases are expected to pick back up heading into October and November. But until then. National Cinema Day is an opportunity to bring people, who maybe have not visited the theater in a while, back in.

"That's the hope. That more people will come out and see the theater and feel comfortable in it again and stuff and realize what quality of presentation movies are and then as they start to see more titles into the fall and winter time that they like, they'll come out to see them more often," said Troll.

For more information on showtimes at Richland Cinema, you can look here. For more information on National Cinema Day, you can follow along with #NationalCinemaDay or visit nationalcinemaday.org.

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