If you want to watch Inception, the 2010 Christopher Nolan movie about dream invaders, it’s available on Netflix and lots of other services. At any time, you can hit play and sad Leonardo DiCaprio will fill your screen. But if that seems too obvious, you can instead wait until this Friday, log into Fortnite, drop onto Party Royale island, and watch Inception on a screen within a screen.
There are three showtimes: 5 am, 5 pm, and 8:55 pm Pacific.
Outside of the US, you may end up with Batman Begins or The Prestige. It’s a rights thing. You can find out which movie will be showing in your area at the bottom of this page.
There’s one special rule: No streaming. Obviously, that’s because these movies are copyrighted and streaming them, even if they’re surrounded by Fortnite, will likely get your Twitch or YouTube channel hit with a DMCA notice.
It’s a cyberspace reincarnation of the television movie event, back when a movie’s first network TV showing was a reason to gather the family. Sure, you could’ve just rented the movie on VHS, but there was something special about catching it ‘live’—even though it meant watching one hundred commercials for coffee, beer, and beef.
Recently, a trailer for Christopher Nolan’s next movie, Tenet, was shown in Fortnite. This experimental ‘Movie Nite’ is obviously another promotion for Tenet, which will be in theaters on July 31. Regardless of whether or not Tenet is any good, though, going to a movie theater on July 31 may not be a great idea: In the US, the record for new COVID-19 cases reported in a single day was just broken.
Maybe Tenet should air in Fortnite, too? Maybe everything should be in Fortnite?
You can find out more about the event here.