With fewer people heading to the stores, many Walmart locations find themselves with extra parking spaces, and they’ve come up with a smart solution. The company is partnering with Tribeca Enterprise, which oversees the Tribeca Film Festival, to convert 160 Walmart parking lots into makeshift drive-in movie theaters. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Walmart, “is transforming 160 of its store parking lots into contact-free drive-in movie theaters, allowing viewers to have a socially distanced big-screen experience amid the coronavirus pandemic.” “Drive-ins have been a signature program for Tribeca since we started the Tribeca Film Festival 19 years ago after 9/11,” Tribeca Enterprises and Tribeca Film Festival co-founder and CEO Jane Rosenthal said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “But now, the Tribeca Drive-In is much more than a fun, retro way to see movies — it’s one of the safest ways for communities to gather. We are thrilled to partner with Walmart to bring more people together around the shared cinematic experiences that Tribeca is known for.” The Walmart movie screenings will run from August through October, and more details on the locations will be announced closer to the launch date. The screenings will include concessions that will be delivered to customers in their vehicle, and moviegoers can place an order for drive-in essentials with a curbside pickup before the movie begins. Currently, there are no details available on what movies the Walmart/Tribeca partnership plans to offer. Still, the company does make a promise that the screenings will feature appearances from stars, and we can safely guess there will be some family-friendly movie offerings. For more details and a full schedule of Tribeca’s Drive-In screenings, click here.
