What movie promo cards came after the first movie?

Four films, four card rituals, and then the lights went down on the American cinema promo.

Pokémon: The Movie 2000 refined the formula. In the first week, ticket holders received Ancient Mew, the very card Lawrence III collects in the film. After the first week, the giveaway changed: attendees received one of three Black Star Promos at random, Moltres (21), Articuno (22) and Zapdos (23), the legendary birds the film's plot revolves around. The two-tier structure made Ancient Mew a first-week artifact, and the birds the souvenir of everyone who came later.

Pokémon 3: Spell of the Unown (2001) gave Entei (promo 34) with tickets, and quietly made history twice over: it was the first Entei card in the international game, and the first reverse holofoil card released outside Japan, its whole surface shining where only the picture used to. A year later Pokémon 4Ever (2002) closed the era: theaters gave a Celebi (promo 50) stamped with the film's logo, and the home video release carried a matching Suicune (promo 53) with the same stamp. Wizards of the Coast then lost the Pokémon license, later films reached America through limited releases and home video, and the ticket-stub promo ended with them.

Japan simply continued without the Americans. Its Pokémon VS half decks, themed to the films, carried the movie Pokémon of the 2000s: Alto Mare's Latios for Pokémon Heroes, Aura's Lucario, Sea's Manaphy, each an owner's Pokémon in the Gym style, printed for the Japanese game only. And in 2019 the wheel came full circle, when the remake Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution put a reprinted Ancient Mew back into cinema pamphlets.

THE BIRDS AND THE BEASTS

The Movie 2000 and Pokémon 3 giveaways

Moltres · Promo 21

One of the three birds handed out after Ancient Mew's first week, at random: you did not choose your bird.

Articuno · Promo 22

The ice bird of the film's trio, and the middle number of the three.

Zapdos · Promo 23

The electric bird completes the set the film's collector was hunting.

Entei, Wizards Black Star Promo 34, reverse holofoil

Entei · Promo 34

Pokémon 3's ticket card, and a genuine first: the first reverse holofoil released outside Japan. Photograph from the CGC archive.

THE LAST OF THE WIZARDS ERA

Pokémon 4Ever, 2002

Celebi, Wizards Black Star Promo 50, with the Pokémon 4Ever stamp

Celebi · Promo 50

The final theatrical promo of the Wizards years, stamped "Pokémon 4Ever" in the artwork. Photograph from the CGC archive.

Suicune · Promo 53

The same stamp, a different door: Suicune was packed with the Celebi: Voice of the Forest VHS and DVD, the souvenir for everyone who missed the cinema.

The VS years

With no American theatrical promos after 2002, the movie-card tradition lived on in Japan's VS decks: Alto Mare's Latios, Aura's Lucario and Sea's Manaphy are the film cards of their decade.

What movie promo cards came after the first movie?

THE BIRDS AND THE BEASTS

THE LAST OF THE WIZARDS ERA

THE FIRST WORD