In a “this weekend only” benefit to help the still-shuttered Roxie Theater, fnnch — who’s now raised nearly $300,000 for COVID-19 charitable efforts — is selling exclusive, limited-edition Movie Bear prints up until midnight PT Sunday night.

A small number of San Francisco multiplex theaters reopened today under our new “Red Tier” status wherein they cannot sell concessions, but the smaller indie movie houses all still remain shuttered and dark. That includes the Roxie Theater in the Mission District, “one of the oldest continuously operated cinemas in the United States,” which will have been closed for a year as of next Saturday.

But there is some help on the way for the Roxie — and you can be part of it — as celebrated honey bear street artist fnnch is offering a limited edition Movie Bear print to benefit the Roxie.

Sales end at midnight PT on Sunday, March 7, so you’ll want to jump on this Roxie Theater benefit before it flicks out.

Today I am releasing a Movie Bear print on store.fnnch.com. It is a timed edition, available from now until Sunday at...

Posted by fnnch on Thursday, March 4, 2021

“The Roxie is obviously a local institution,” fnnch told SFist Friday afternoon. And of the bear, fnnch says, “It’s one of my favorite designs. When I originally did it as a painting, I used translucent paint to do the 3D glasses, which has been interpreted for the print in a different way. It’s something I knew would be a hit.”

When we last checked on fnnch’s coronavirus-inspired Honey Bear murals in May, these had raised more than $125,000 for COVID-19 charities. That total has since more than doubled.

“My 2020 total raised was $293,000,” fnnch told us in an update. “Last year I raised some money for the SF LGBT Center, some money for St. Anthony's a nonprofit that provides meals to those in need. We raised a little bit for the Equal Justice Initiative, the Southern Poverty Law Center,” and adds that other mural and art sales have benefited SF New Deal and a program for the SF Ballet to test dancers multiple times per week.


At $100 per print, your 18” x 24” archival pigment Movie Bear print will be signed and numbered. The release is being handled in partnership with Spoke Art, who note that “edition size will be determined by the number of prints sold during this window, once the sale is over this print will be discontinued and never made available for sale again.”

Spoke Art adds that there’s an extra bonus contest in this release. “35 lucky Spoke Art customers will receive an extra print randomly inserted into their order,” says their print description. “This free bonus print is a previously unreleased foil variant of fnnch's iconic Astro Bear, this exclusive foil screen print comes signed and numbered by the artist in an edition of only 35 copies.”


The Roxie Theater has been running a virtual cinema where you can just buy tickets and stream the movies from home, though Roxie programming director Isabel Fondevila tells SFGate this pulls in only about 5% of their pre-pandemic revenue. “Financially, it’s been really hard for us,” Fondevila said to SFGate. “We didn't know things were going to last this long, but they have."

The theater has also been part of the Fort Mason Flix drive-in experiment, screening some of their films for the admission price of $49 a carload. (Next up is the Oscar-nomination shortlist dog documentary Stray on March 10). But if this fnnch benefit goes well, they may catch more flies with honey bears than streaming and drive-in shows.

The Movie Bear print is available until Midnight, Sunday March 7, at fnnch.com and Spoke Art.

Related: Collection of Coronavirus-Inspired Honey Bear Murals Debut in The Castro [SFist]

Image: fnnch via fnnch.com