Greenfield theater collecting donations for victims of California wildfires

GREENFIELD — The Garden Cinemas is collecting donations for victims of the southern California wildfires by selling tickets to a theatrical slate of trailers, never-before-seen footage and behind-the-scenes content.

The Main Street movie theater is selling $3 tickets to “Sneak Peek Showcase,” an approximately 72-minute program that helps moviegoers experience CinemaCon, an annual industry convention that is organized by The Cinema Foundation and attracts attendees from at least 80 countries. The events will start at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22, and Thursday, April 24.

Garden Cinemas co-owner Isaac Mass said all proceeds will be donated to The Cinema Foundation, the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation and Variety – the Children’s Charity. The theater will also accept donations on top of the $3 tickets.

“We obviously support the theater industry as a whole and ... it seems like there’s always something going on affecting Hollywood,” Mass said, mentioning the 2023 actors strike. “All the people who work in the industry have been affected by these LA fires. We want to make sure that … the people who work in the industry who make our great movies, and their families, are taken care of in these difficult times.”

Mass recently attended CinemaCon in Las Vegas, where major studios ran programs at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace to create their own package for the “Sneak Peek Showcase.” Each studio package will be presented in the same order as they appeared on stage at CinemaCon, with content from Sony, Lionsgate, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Amazon MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures and Disney.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.