#500MoviesIn500Days was an attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records by frequent On Cinema guest Gregg Turkington. Announced during S03E05, Turkington planned to watch 500 movies within a 500 day time span, starting with the film Jack Frost on July 30, 2013, along with one other movie. Crucially, Turkington's challenge did not require him to watch a movie every day, so long as he watched more than one movie on other days. In this way, a backlog could be built up in case Turkington had to miss a day due to unforeseen circumstances.
Turkington's focus of movies to watch were films currently playing in theaters, and movies in his collection he had not previously seen.[1] He wanted to make sure that “only the best” movies were included in the record.[2]
During the attempt, various celebrities wished Turkington well on his attempt, including Jimmy McNichol and Joe Estevez.[3]
By day 15, Turkington had watched 19 movies, giving him a surplus of 4.[4]
By day 35, Turkington had watched 51 movies, giving him a surplus of 16. Turkington on this day announced the launch of a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the endeavor. The campaign would pay for VHS tapes, theater tickets, concessions, parking, and marketing of the record.[5] While Turkington couldn't promise everyone who donated would get in the record book, he did pledge to send out certificates and signed copies of the movies used for the record, along with photocopies of the record.[5] He was also accepting copies of movies to watch, though funding was preferable.[5] The goal for the Kickstarter was $500.
By the first episode of Season 4, Gregg was 163 days in, though his surplus had shrunken back down to 4.
Gregg had a list of all the movies he had watched during the attempt, though curiously, it was a few days out of date, with only 127 movies listed, when Turkington demonstrated it to Larry Turman on day 184.[6]
Following Gregg's demonstration of the list to Larry Turman, he accidentally left it on set and was unable to find it after filming.[7] He was forced to start his attempt over from scratch. However, he found his original list before the season 5 finale, allowing him to combine it with his new one, which was then at 200 films. This brought him to a total of 327 movies.[8]
Gregg completed the attempt between seasons 5 and 6, and went a step further, officially ending the campaign as 501 Movies in 501 Days.[9] Although he stated he expected to hear from the Guinness World Records staff, his record does not appear to have been officially recognized.