Mason Parker Brings Cinema, Sound, and Story Together with Popcorn & Playlist

Charlotte's multi-hyphenate creative launches an immersive private screening series, kicking off July 31 with Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

For Mason Parker, storytelling has never lived inside one medium. Across more than two decades in entertainment, the Charlotte-based lyricist, poet, actor, and cultural curator has moved fluidly between hip-hop stages, theater productions, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival — always blurring the line between performance and experience. Now, he's bringing that same instinct to the movie theater.

Popcorn & Playlist, the recurring private screening series presented by Parker's lifestyle brand Sounds, Sneakers & Superheroes, launches July 31 at Cinemark Movie Bistro in Charlotte with a private screening of Marvel's highly anticipated Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The event isn't just a movie night. It's a curated cultural experience — part screening, part artist collaboration, part community gathering — built for super fans, cinephiles, and anyone looking for something more than a standard night at the theater.

"Movies are how a lot of us first learned to feel something deeply," Parker says. "Popcorn & Playlist is about bringing that feeling back — but with intention. We're not just watching a movie. We're building a moment around it. The music, the merch, the art, the people you're sitting next to — it all matters."

That intentionality runs through every detail of the inaugural event. The $35 general admission ticket includes a movie pass, a large drink and popcorn, a custom event t-shirt, and a free Spidey print by Charlotte-based comic artist Wolly McNair. Every ticket holder is automatically entered into a raffle for an original Wolly McNair double-page exclusive piece of Spider-Man artwork — the kind of one-of-one collectible that turns a movie ticket into a memory.

The series fits naturally inside the larger world Parker has been building. Sounds, Sneakers & Superheroes — the lifestyle brand behind Popcorn & Playlist — is anchored by three cultural pillars in its name: sounds (music), sneakers (street fashion), and superheroes (comic book, fantasy, and pop culture). For Parker, who has long drawn inspiration from the performance brilliance of Michael Jackson and the lyrical depth of Tupac Shakur and Langston Hughes, the brand is less a business venture and more an extension of how he sees the world: layered, referential, deeply rooted in the cultures that raised him.

"Mason has always been someone who connects dots most people don't even see," says a longtime collaborator who has worked with Parker on multiple projects. "He's a poet who thinks like a director, a curator who moves like a performer. Popcorn & Playlist is exactly the kind of thing only he would build — because only he could see all those threads at once."

Parker's recent work has continued to push into new mediums. His latest album, Canon Event, features acclaimed actor and poet Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and his ongoing comic book project, The Paperback Hero Saga, follows his alter ego "The Bookkeeper" through a coming-of-age story

layered with hidden short films and an original soundtrack. Across all of it, the through line is the same: Parker isn't interested in art that asks audiences to sit back. He wants them to lean in.

Popcorn & Playlist will run as a recurring monthly series, with future events building on the model established July 31. Tickets for the Spider-Man: Brand New Day private screening go on sale June 5 at iammasonparker.com.

The screening begins at 7:30 PM at Cinemark Movie Bistro, 9630 Monroe Road, Charlotte, NC.

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Popcorn & Playlist is presented by Sounds, Sneakers & Superheroes in partnership with DRC and Oncemperdas Studios.