Picking movies that somehow coordinate with upcoming releases is one strategy film festivals can use, but it isn’t necessarily the only one.
Organizers of movie-watching events may want their large movie screens and the equipment that comes with them to be ready far in advance in order to be able to have the best and most well-formulated setups to gather audiences around, no matter the material being shown. Just as movie exhibitors can pick films that coincide with immediate news of mainstream releases, they can also plan ahead and structure future offerings so that they line up as well.
For example, the internet has been pulsing with the news that there will be a film featuring both Superman and Batman in 2015. If an organizing group is having trouble thinking of material, or unsure of a certain theme that they can institute for their event, they can select either superhero movies or perhaps other films featuring the same directors or stars to lead up to it.
This can offer a nice corrective to the mainstream theater offerings at the time, actually, if the current crop proves to be too tiresome. The most recent batch of blockbusters has been the subject of some attention for charting relatively low this summer, with a recent Wired piece posing the question of whether a new shift is coming to the “tentpole” approach it’s been employing, centering around the production of huge films designed to rake in big box office grosses.
Whatever films your event chooses to put on display, you can select an inflatable screen and other display equipment that makes it easiest for audiences to simply sit back and enjoy, the way that it should be.