Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey has starred in a new campaign encouraging American audiences back to cinemas.

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McConaughey addressed viewers in a moviegoing public service announcement which aired as part of the Academy Awards pre-show on Sunday (25 April).

When describing America’s cinema employees, he said: “They are the unsung heroes who bring movie magic to the big screen. It’s been a very hard year for them: furloughs, closures, basically the longest intermission that they could have ever imagined.”

The video is part of a new initiative called The Big Screen Is Back. It’s been launched by cinema operators, talent agents, studio executives and filmmakers to encourage Americans to safely return to the cinema this summer.

Alongside McConaughey’s words of encouragement, the video included clips from some of the forthcoming blockbuster season’s biggest releases. The much-delayed Bond film No Time To Die, plus Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights and Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings  featured briefly as a hint of what’s to come when cinemas re-open after over a year of closures.

Cinema Advertising Association’s Megan Crawford, who is behind the new campaign, told Variety: “Movie theatres are better than ever and because of the [safety] regulations they’re much cleaner than they’ve ever been and the atmosphere is probably more inviting than it had been before all of this happened.”

Matthew McConaughey will next appear in cinemas opposite Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson in animated sequel Sing 2. He has also confirmed that a potential bid to govern the state of Texas in the 2022 election may be on the cards.