Wide release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing nationally (as opposed to a few cinemas in cities such as New York and Los Angeles). Specifically, a movie is considered to be in wide release when it is on 600 screens or more in the United States and Canada.
In the US, films holding an NC-17 rating almost never have a wide release. Showgirls (1995) is one of the rare films with an NC-17 to get one.
The term is sometimes used informally in relative terms. For example, a documentary or art film promoter might speak of a film expanding from a few New York and Los Angeles screens to cinemas in major cities across the U.S. as moving into "wide release" even though it might be playing on single screens in as few as 15 or 20 major cities.
Famous quotes containing the words wide and/or release:
“The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)