Following the temporary collapse of the fan fiction website A03, extremely horny millennial women are on the hunt for other ways to get their rocks off—and Regal Cinemas execs are more than happy to help.
On Tuesday, the movie theater chain announced that for one night only, on November 16, it will be screening 4DX versions of episodes 5 and 6 of Heated Rivalry, the smash-hit gay hockey show adapted from the bestselling novels by Rachel Reid that first aired on the Canadian network Crave but blasted into the mainstream when it came to HBO Max. The screenings will be at 59 theaters across the US, as well as a handful of theaters in Canada and the United Kingdom.
The screenings are intended to give fans the opportunity “to go to the cottage and really experience” Hollanov all over again, says Jack Grimes, senior director of alternative business development at Regal.
The 4DX screenings are upping the ante for the fan-favorite Heated Rivalry screenings, which have been selling out in movie theaters across the US for the past month. Though the series is widely available to stream, fans have flocked to theaters to shout along to t.a.T.u’s “All the Things She Said” during the club scene in episode four and post photos of the Heated Rivalry–themed popcorn buckets featuring stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams in a sweaty, shirtless embrace. Thus far, such public displays of down bad-ness have been incredibly lucrative: as of November 8, Regal has earned $1.4 million from its limited theatrical release, per Variety’s reporting.
Still, Heated Rivalry isn’t an obvious candidate for a 4DX release. Originating in South Korea in 2009, 4DX technology provides an immersive experience for the viewer, such as motion-enabled chairs; environmental effects like wind, snow, and rain; or even scents, such as the smell of gunpowder or explosives during battle scenes. It’s mostly been used for big-budget action-adventure movies and thrillers such as The Odyssey and Avatar: The Way of Water.
Recently, however, there’s been increasing demand for 4DX big-screen releases for not just conventional action movies but also straightforward dramas, comedies, and even romances. Put another way, there’s evidence that a not-insubstantial number of the filmgoing public would like nothing more than a two-hour license to hump their seats.
For instance, as the result of what was essentially an extremely online in-joke, last month the film distributor Black Bear hosted 4DX screenings of the romantic black comedy Wicker, starring Olivia Colman as a woman who falls in love with a straw-plaited man (Alexander Skarsgaard). The screening featured such immersive special effects as water splashing in the audience’s faces when Colman’s character empties out her chamber pot, as well as synchronized motion-activated “thrusts” in the audience’s seats during sex scenes.