The unusual record for the most dogs attending a movie screening
Having been around for well over a century, the world of cinema is crammed with tons of record-breaking moments. Director James Cameron is responsible for many of such mainstream records, having helmed the highest-grossing movie of all time in the form of 2009’s Avatar, starring Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Giovanni Ribisi, among others.
Yet, cinema is a wonderful place that brings together creatives from multiple different backgrounds and creeds, leading to countless strange records being broken time and time again. One of the weirdest records is the movie that saw the highest number of dogs attend one of its screenings, a fact that will get any pooch-lover pricking up their ears in eager anticipation of the answer.
The record was claimed as recently as 2022, when 199 different dogs attended a screening of A Dog’s Way Home in Litchfield Skyview Drive-In, Illinois. During the screening, dogs growled and barked at the feel-good film, with the purpose of the record-breaking event being to bring attention to the many businesses operating along the iconic Route 66, with attendees at the event signing a petition in support of the route being a National Historic Trail.
The somewhat forgettable movie was helmed by director Charles Martin Smith, who has also taken charge of other animal-related flicks, Air Bud and Dolphin Tale, and starred the likes of Ashley Judd, Bryce Dallas Howard and Jonah Hauer-King. A family-friendly drama, the film tells the story of a dog who travels across hundreds of miles of Colorado wilderness in order to find its owner.
Remarkably, this isn’t even the first time that this record has been broken, with there being two other times in recent history when other groups vied for the top spot.
It all started in Brazil in 2019 when 120 canines attended a screening of the Illumination Entertainment animation The Secret Life of Pets 2, starring Harrison Ford, Kevin Hart and Chris Renaud. From that moment, the record was set, with the film holding the unlikely accolade until three years later when a screening in England would topple the mighty movie.
In Worcester’s Perdiswell Leisure Centre, a 23-year-old woman organised 127 dogs to attend a screening of the Disney classic 101 Dalmatians by directors Clyde Geronimi
Hamilton Luske and Wolfgang Reitherman. Despite wanting 200 pooches at the event, the woman, named Rachel Marie, broke the record by just seven pets, only for her own achievement to be broken mere months later.
Take a look at the trailer for A Dog’s Way Home if you want some inspiration to start your own attempt at breaking the record.
