Open Movie Captioning in Movie Theaters.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA
SESSION 2025
H 1
HOUSE BILL 677

Short Title: Open Movie Captioning in Movie Theaters. (Public)
Sponsors: Representatives Turner, Alston, Lopez, and Crawford (Primary Sponsors).
For a complete list of sponsors, refer to the North Carolina General Assembly web site.
Referred to: Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House
April 3, 2025
*H677-v-1*
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED 1
AN ACT TO REQUIRE OP EN MOVIE CAPTIONING IN MOVIE THEATERS UN DER 2
CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES. 3
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts: 4
SECTION 1. Article 1 of Chapter 168 of the General Statutes is amended by adding 5
a new section to read: 6
"§ 168-3.1. Open movie captioning. 7
(a) For purposes of this section, the following definitions shall apply: 8
(1) Movie. – A story or event recorded by a camera as a set of moving images. 9
(2) Movie theater. – An entity in the business of providing showings of movies to 10
the general public. 11
(3) Open captioning. – The written, on-screen display of a movie 's dialogue and 12
non-speech information, including music, the identity of the character who is 13
speaking, and other sounds and sound effects. 14
(4) Operating week. – The operating hours of a movie theater beginning on a 15
Friday and ending the subsequent Thursday. 16
(5) Peak attendance hours. – The hours between 5:59 P.M. and 11:01 P.M. on 17
Friday and 10:59 A.M. and 11:01 P.M. on Saturday or Sunday. 18
(b) Open Captioning Required. – If a movie theater offers more than 10 movie showings 19
each operating week, at least one-fourth of all scheduled showings of a movie with four or more 20
scheduled showings during an operating week shall have open captioning. No more than four 21
open captioning showings of a single movie shall be required in an operating week. At least half 22
of the schedu led showings described in this subsection shall begin and end within peak 23
attendance hours; provided, however, if fewer than one in eight showings of a particular movie 24
is screened during peak attendance hours, the requirements of this subsection shall be satisfied if 25
all screenings of the particular movie during peak attendance hours ha ve open captioning. The 26
showing in the same theater of two movies with open captioning that overlap in time on the 27
screen shall count toward the minimum number of showings required by this section. Nothing in 28
this section shall be construed as preventing a movie theater from showing more movies with 29
open captioning than required by this subsection. 30
(c) Public Notice. – A movie theater subject to the provisions of subsection ( b) of this 31
section shall advertise the date and time of movie showings with open captioning in the same 32
manner that the movie theater advertises all other movie showings. The advertisement shall 33
clearly indicate which movie showings will include open captioning. 34
General Assembly Of North Carolina Session 2025
Page 2 House Bill 677-First Edition
(d) Records. – Every movie theater subject to the provisions of subsection (b) of this 1
section shall maintain documents sufficient to demonstrate their compliance with the open 2
captioning requirement for a period of at least three years. 3
(e) Exceptions. – The provisions of this section shall not apply to a movie that is produced 4
and distributed without open captioning. 5
(f) Violations. – Any movie theater found to be in violation of the provisions of this 6
section shall be subject to a civil penalty of not less than one hundred dollars ($100.00) and not 7
more than five hundred dollars ($500.00) for each violation." 8
SECTION 2. This act becomes effective October 1, 2025, and applies to movies 9
showing on or after that date. 10