Free outdoor movies replace drive-ins as summer night tradition in Canada

Bill Murray is supposedly fond of sneaking up on people in public, then leaving them with the words, "No one will ever believe you."

And, if the organizers of an annual outdoor movie series have their way that will happen sometime this summer along the Halifax waterfront.

"Summer of Murray," part of the annual alFresco Film Festo put on each year by the Atlantic Film Festival, is part of a growing trend across the country to show free features at dusk.

A weekly screening of a comedy starring the rumpled "Saturday Night Live" legend is scheduled to kick off July 22 with the 1979 Canadian classic "Meatballs." Organizers hope to get Bill himself to make a surprise appearance sometime before the final movie, "Rushmore," is shown on Aug. 26.

While drive-ins were once considered a rite of passage across the continent, the new wave of screenings under the stars have taken advantage of newer technologies, along with an increased spirit of urban renewal.

Meanwhile, the first floating movie event in the country, Sail-In Cinema, has been announced for Toronto's Harbour at Sugar Beach on the weekend of Aug. 18-20. A two-sided screen will allow for the water-themed flicks to be watched in boats or on the mainland.

Toronto Port Authority will determine which films are being screened via a social media vote. Among the nominations offered so far: "Dead Calm," the 1989 sailing thriller that featured Nicole Kidman, and "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" starring Bill Murray.

Winnipeg will get its own screening series in August when a double feature is scheduled for each Friday in Assiniboine Park, with a kid-friendly movie at 7 p.m. and movies like "Avatar" and "Top Gun" after dark. Projectors were turned off at the city's last drive-in cinema three years ago.

But with 65 permanent outdoor theatres still operating in Canada, according to figures from the website Drive-On-In, the tradition of parking a car to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster isn't entirely dead yet.

The move to exclusively digital projection starting next year, though, is expected to be the end of the road for most of these cinematic throwbacks.

(Getty Images)