Aussie Heated Rivalry fans can return to the cottage for five-hour cinema marathon

Madman Entertainment is marking a year of the global hit with a nearly five hour marathon screening this December.

Finally see Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie on the big screen.

International hit Heated Rivalry is heading back to screens, bigger than ever, with distributor Madman Entertainment staging a one day only marathon screening of the show’s acclaimed first season in select Australian cinemas on Saturday, December 5.

The event marks a year since the HBO Max romantic drama first premiered, and will play every episode of season one back to back, with a single intermission between episodes three and four.

At just under five hours, it is being billed as a rare chance for fans to experience the cult favourite the way it was never meant to be watched: on the big screen, together.

“Giving fans the opportunity to return to the cottage, experience their favourite scenes on the big screen and celebrate the show’s infectious queer joy with other fans,” Madman Entertainment said in a statement announcing the event.

For Australian audiences, the marathon lands as one of the biggest queer fandom cinema events of the year, a chance for local fans to turn a famously online fandom into a shared, in-person celebration.

Heated Rivalry follows Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), two of the biggest stars in fictional Major League Hockey, whose rivalry and ambition mask a magnetic pull neither of them fully understands.

What starts as a secret fling between two fresh faced rookies turns into an eight year journey through love, denial and self discovery, as the pair try to work out whether there is room for real love in their fiercely competitive world.

The ensemble cast includes Francois Arnaud as Scott Hunter, Robbie G.K. as Kip Grady, Christina Chang and Dylan Walsh as Yuna and David Hollander, Sophie Nelisse as Rose Landry, and Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova as Svetlana.

READ MORE: Heated Rivalry season two: the new castings, and the theory behind that shaved head

Heated Rivalry is created by Jacob Tierney and based on Rachel Reid’s bestselling novels, with Tierney also serving as writer, director and executive producer alongside producer and executive producer Brendan Brady.

READ MORE: ‘I’ll Believe in Anything’: The Heated Rivalry making-of book fans have been yearning for

The series is produced by Accent Aigu Entertainment in association with Bell Media’s Crave, with the participation of the Canada Media Fund and the Bell Fund, and is distributed internationally by Sphere Abacus in more than 130 countries.

Tickets for the Heated Rivalry marathon are on sale now via madman.com.au, with the event opening in select Australian cinemas on Saturday, December 5.

Heated Rivalry is streaming now on HBO Max in Australia.