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Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: The Comedy Cellar, Getty
If you went to the movies the week of December 18, 1987, you were spoiled for choice. You could have bought tickets to see blockbusters like Wall Street; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; or Three Men and a Baby. Or you might have gone to see the surprising box-office juggernaut that pulled in more money than all of them that week: Eddie Murphy’s stand-up special Raw.
That film, along with specials like Richard Pryor’s Live On the Sunset Strip and The Original Kings of Comedy, is part of a minor but notable legacy of stand-up being broadcast in movie theaters. The model all but vanished after streaming services monopolized the market in the early 2010s — Kevin Hart’s 2016 special What Now? was the last notable special to have received a theatrical release — but on Saturday, August 5, a newer streaming service will test the public’s appetite for stand-up in this setting once again.
Mint Comedy, which has livestreamed shows from New York City’s vaunted Comedy Cellar venue on its platform to subscribers every week since early 2023, has partnered with Regal Cinemas to stream two Cellar shows to 48 theaters across the United States. Arnold Jung, the company’s CEO, says the idea came from a desire to harness the communal aspect of stand-up and relay it to those who can’t regularly attend live shows in big cities like New York. He’s not certain how successful the undertaking will be initially, but he’s optimistic it can grow over time. “Our hopes aren’t necessarily super-high that we’re going to fill all the seats,” he says, “but if we continue to do it consistently and people know about us, then the audience size will grow.”
The lineup for the livestreamed shows on August 5 will feature comedians Zarna Garg, Yamaneika Saunders, Jared Fried, Ethan Simmons Patterson, John Bishop, and Pat Burtscher. If you live near any of the participating 48 locations — concentrated primarily in the eastern and central United States to optimize for audiences in Eastern Standard Time — get in on this rare opportunity to attend a live comedy experience without having to endure the risk of being crowd-worked.
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