As of the 2022 edition of the contest, four finalist scripts are then chosen, and the student filmmakers receive $18,000 to produce their films along with behind-the-scenes footage.
Two schools have managed to win the contest in two consecutive years: the University of Southern California in 2009 and 2010, and the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2019 and 2020.
[25][26] In the 2017 edition of the contest, students from 25 film schools across the country were eligible to submit their scripts focusing on the movie-going experience and Coca-Cola's role in it.
[28] The grand prize winners were Julian Conner and Tom Teller from Chapman University, whose film was shown in Regal locations nationwide beginning in May 2017.
Five finalist scripts that highlighted the movie-going experience and the significance of Coca-Cola Regal Cinemas popcorn in it were selected from the submitted applications.
First-year students Montague and Kirie, majoring in television and radio, originally entered the contest for a class assignment that required them to submit a script, budget and crew list.
[32] Along with the main competition, this year the program partnered with Universal Pictures' film Blockers to introduce a brand new "Fan Favorite Award."
Voters were also entered to win a year of free movies and concessions at Regal Cinemas in the Fan Favorite Sweepstakes.
Stansberry argued that bots were used to manipulate the voting in favor of Jessie Lee and Xinzhong "Golden" Zhao's film "Frozen in Time," which would be a violation of the contest's rules.
In the 2019 contest, teams of student filmmakers from 30 different schools were required to submit scripts highlighting the entertaining and relaxing aspects of the movie-going experience, and the significance of Coca-Cola and popcorn in it, by October 5, 2018.
[37] Second-year director Devon Solwold and fourth-year producer Shayain Lakhani from the Savannah College of Art and Design were announced as the grand prize winners by Wilde on social media on April 4, 2019, and their film "Choose Happy" debuted at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Nevada on the same day.
[41] The winning film tells the story of a sad man with a rain cloud over his head who takes a trip to the movie theater.
The rain cloud transforms into a miniature Sun and his spirits are lifted as he takes a sip of Coca-Cola before watching the movie.
Finalist schools were required to submit a case study showcasing how they utilized social media to promote their film throughout the contest period.
Campisi and Peterson used official accounts from departments at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the hashtag #RebelsBigWish in order to spread their film across social media.
[46] From over 900 scripts, five finalists were chosen to produce their 35-second film (including the 5-second bumper) from January to April 2020 with $15,000 and additional resources from the program's partners RED Digital Cinema, ZEISS and Deluxe's EFILM.
Itugot and Zhinin received a RED DRAGON-X camera package, a ZEISS Milvus Superspeed lens kit and an additional $15,000 in prize money.
The president of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Dr. Gerard Buckley, covered all interpreting costs for the film's production.
The winning film tells a love story of cross-cultural communication, and Ponte-Fleary hopes that as a result viewers will "be inspired to learn American Sign Language and see Deaf people as equals.