Tuesday, August 27, 2019

TCM Announces 2020 Festival Dates and Theme

If it's the last week of August, it must be time for the first announcements for next year's TCM Classic Film Festival!

True to form, today Turner Classic Movies announced the dates and theme for its 11th classic film festival, to be held in Hollywood in April 2020.

The festival dates are April 16th through 19th.

The TCM press release states: "Over four packed days and nights, attendees will be treated to an extensive lineup of great movies, appearances by legendary stars and filmmakers, fascinating presentations and panel discussions, special events and more."

The 2020 theme is "Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film." Selected titles reflecting the theme will take viewers "to enchanted worlds of fantasy and stories beyond belief. From myths and magical creatures to ghostly encounters and travels through time, they will escape with fellow movie lovers to places that will ignite their imagination."

Festival pass prices have gone up for the first time in four years; pricing may be found here.

For a quick overview, here are the increases: The Palace pass has gone from $299 to $349; Classic from $649 to $749; Essential from $799 to $999; and Spotlight from $2149 to $2449.

Details on what's included with each pass may be found at the pricing link above. Passes go on sale this November.

A wild card in planning next year's festival is the potential sale of the Egyptian Theatre by the American Cinematheque to Netflix.

There has been a notable lack of transparency regarding the proposed sale, with American Cinematheque members receiving a single email with any information. If a rumor seen on Twitter is accurate, when it looked like the sale was going to go through in July, the Cinecon Classic Film Festival was going to be cancelled with just a month's notice; the sale was not completed and the fest goes on. Please note that I have not found multiple sources to confirm that information as yet but am sharing it to help illustrate my concern for future Hollywood classic film festivals may not be unfounded.

There has been reference that Netflix would allow the American Cinematheque and festivals to use the theater on "weekends," but obviously festivals such as TCMFF, Noir City, or Cinecon don't run only on weekends, so we'll have to see what happens. Frankly I hope the deal falls through. If Netflix genuinely wants to put money into a classic movie palace they could instead make a very large charitable donation to the American Cinematheque and arrange to rent the theater as needed.

As always, I encourage anyone considering attending the TCM Classic Film Festival to visit my overview of the 2019 festival; that post includes many additional links for both the 2019 and past festivals.

Potential attendees will also want to stayed tuned to the official festival website for news and follow TCM on Twitter.

And of course, I'll have lots of festival information here as it unfolds over the coming months! This post will be updated with links for additional festival news posts so that all relevant information may be easily found in one place.

In other TCM news, it was also very recently announced that the TCM Classic Cruise, which is taking place this October after an absence of a few years, will also return in October 2020.

This year's cruise is aboard the Disney Magic from October 22nd to 27th, sailing from New York to Bermuda. The 2020 cruise will take place October 4th through 10th on the Disney Fantasy, with an itinerary sailing from Port Canaveral in Florida to Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Disney's Castaway Cay.

I've never been interested in cruising but must admit a classic film cruise on a Disney ship tempts me...especially if it's sailing out of Florida and could be combined with a visit to Walt Disney World. Hmmmmm.

Meanwhile, hope to see many of you in Hollywood in April 2020!!

November 4, 2019 Update: TCM Classic Film Festival Announcements.

December 13, 2019 Update: Latest TCM Classic Film Festival Announcements.

February 5, 2020 Update: The Latest TCM Classic Film Festival Announcements.

March 5, 2020 Update: New Titles and Guests Announced for 2020 TCM Classic Film Festival.

March 12, 2020 Update: 2020 TCM Classic Film Festival Cancelled.

April 15, 2020 Update: The TCM Classic Film Festival 2020 Special Home Edition.

2 Comments:

Blogger Seth said...

I had a great time at this year's TCMFF, but I haven't yet decided about returning in 2020. Thankfully, I still have a couple of months to decide (and save!) before tickets go on sale. I find next year's theme more interesting than last year's when it was initially announced.

As for the Egyptian, I share your concerns. I've been watching a lot of Huell Howser lately and just finished the two "Visiting..." episodes he did on the theater--before and after renovations--which might be of interest to others. The state of the theater in the "before" episode was especially shocking to me.

https://blogs.chapman.edu/huell-howser-archives/2016/12/07/egyptian-theater-visiting-409/

https://blogs.chapman.edu/huell-howser-archives/1999/10/28/egyptian-theater-visiting-712/

9:27 PM  
Blogger Laura said...

Hi Seth!

I'm a big Huell Howser fan and have recorded many of his programs to disc but was unaware he had done programs on the Egyptian. Thanks so much for these links! I will definitely watch them. Chapman University has done a marvelous thing putting his archives online.

Hope to see you in 2020!

Best wishes,
Laura

11:06 AM  

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