The Friday night blockbuster: When developed and marketed correctly, it’s more than a movie. It’s an event. Waiting in line for the best seats, rushing online to buy tickets early: It’s all part of the Friday or Saturday night excitement.

Increasingly, though, movie theaters are trying to replicate that Friday night atmosphere during the weekdays by showing select films for niche audiences as one-night-only events.

In January, the city’s running community flooded theaters on a Thursday evening to see the documentary “Spirit of the Marathon.” Then in May, radio audiences flocked to theaters across America for a one-night-only chance to see a live simulcast of “This American Life.” This month, fans of the political commentator Glenn Beck shelled out about $20 to watch a live broadcast of the comedy show he was performing that evening in Dallas.

A few years ago, such specialty events were rare. The Metropolitan Opera could be seen on the big screen from time to time, as could the occasional sporting event. But in the past year, the number of these specialty programs has skyrocketed. A leading company behind this specialized alternative programming is Fathom Events, a division of National CineMedia — one of the many companies that produces the 15- to 20-minute entertainment-advertising programs that screen in theaters prior to the coming attractions.

On pace to host about 40 specialty events this year (up from 15 in 2005), Fathom can organize screenings of prerecorded material on some 14,000 screens, as well as coordinate live, nationwide, high-definition simulcasts in 400 theaters spread across 145 markets.

Looking ahead in the next month, one can appreciate the range and variety of Fathom’s programs. On Thursday, the company will target the motorcycling and adventure-racing communities with “Long Way Down,” a documentary following the actor Ewan McGregor as he bikes 15,000 miles from Scotland to South Africa. The project originally made its debut as a televised miniseries in Britain, and will screen in American theaters (including two in Manhattan) on Thursday as a condensed director’s cut.

“It’s the scope of what Fathom’s doing that amazes me,” the director of “Long Way Down,” David Alexanian, said. “We delivered the HD master, and then they will be transmitting that to almost 500 theaters across the country. It’s something that would be virtually impossible for an independent film to do, to produce 5,000 separate film prints. As a director on a film like this, where you have this sort of unlimited access to these wide-open beautiful spaces, it’s impossible not to dream of a way you could get this on the big screen.”

By maximizing the marketing effort and limiting the number of venues, Fathom is trying to get more bang for its buck — and, in the process, to suggest a new business strategy for the theater industry. Anyone who showed up early for “The Dark Knight” a few weeks ago at a theater chain that partners with Fathom saw an extended preview of “Long Way Down.” But rather than open the documentary on thousands of screens across the country, Fathom has opted to target niche markets, opening the film on a more limited scale and focusing on filling up each and every venue.

Next week, Fathom’s special event will be a live screening of “DCI 2008: Big, Loud & Live 5,” the 2008 World Championship Quarterfinals of the Drum Corps International. Traditionally one of the company’s most reliable draws, the program consists of performances from the nation’s top 15 drum corps as they compete (in real time) at Indiana University. On August 21, Fathom aims to draw in economics buffs for a special program pairing the financial documentary “I.O.U.S.A.” with a live discussion featuring Warren Buffett, Pete Peterson, and Dave Walker.

Fathom’s vice president, Dan Diamond, said the company’s niche-oriented, one-night format is catching on. The “This American Life” event was a sensational hit among fans of the weekly National Public Radio show. Nearly 100,000 tickets were sold for the one-night “Spirit of the Marathon” screening and its subsequent encore presentations, with some Northeast running clubs taking part in a 130-mile relay to see the nearest screening. Next week’s drum corps simulcast has become an annual tradition for families in certain regions of the country.

“What began with only a handful of markets has expanded exponentially, and now with the drum corps program, we’re witnessing a very tight and widespread community that looks forward to it every year,” Mr. Diamond said. “As a company, we’ve expanded into 137 markets. We’re witnessing people who literally drive across states to see some of our shows, and we’re expanding to more and more communities as a result.”

In the end, though, Mr. Diamond knows that Fathom’s greatest service is, simply, to attract movie lovers to theaters on days they wouldn’t ordinarily be there.

“At the heart of all this is the essence of what movie theaters have always been able to deliver,” he said, “a community experience, between people excited about the same thing. This is what theaters are good for, and Fathom is finding new ways of advancing that communal experience.”

ssnyder@nysun.com