Nicole Kidman invites us to be ‘reborn’ at the movies for AMC and Odeon Cinemas

Cinemas are still struggling to get audiences in, and whether it’s because of the delta variant or duff movie releases isn’t clear. Nicole Kidman is doing her best to tempt us back, with a $25 million campaign for AMC cinemas in the US and its subsidiary Odeon across nine countries in Europe.

The script is pretty overblown. We are “not just entertained but somehow reborn” in the cinema, where “somehow heartbreak feels good,” but the visuals are nicely low key and intimate, making the film very evocative of the experience.

She might be better-known for her TV work lately (Big Little Lies, The Undoing, Nine Perfect Strangers) but there’s no doubt that Kidman has the Hollywood glow.

The ad, by Kansas-based creative agency Barkley, was directed by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth (Fight Club, Gone Girl), and written by another Academy Award nominee Billy Ray (Captain Phillips).

It’s the first time in 101 years that AMC has done a push like this, and it comes at a time when the film studios remain nervous about putting out the big releases — Paramount Pictures has just delayed Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick to 2022 from its November release date and there are even rumours that James Bond’s No Time to Die could be pushed on from its 30th September date.