Wednesday, May 04, 2005

HOW TO AVOID THE "PRE-SHOW ENTERTAINMENT"


As reported on IMDb today, the Loews Cineplex exhibition chain is going the European route, after much angry prompting, and posting the actual start times for movies, as opposed to times when the trailers and ads start:

"Responding to complaints from moviegoers -- and the threat of legislation -- Loews Cineplex Entertainment said that beginning next week, ads listing the times for the movies being shown in its theaters will also carry a note reading, "The feature presentation starts 10 to 15 minutes after the posted show time." The note will first appear in ads for theaters in Connecticut, then two weeks later in the rest of the country. John McCauley, head of marketing for the theater chain, told today's (Wednesday) New York Times that it was only coincidence that the initial test will be held in Connecticut, where a state representative has sponsored a bill requiring real-time listings."

I'm not holding my breath for the possibility of an actual courtesy flush on the "pre-show entertainment" here. And most theaters don't provide reserved seating, so if you're expecting to be able to walk into a screening of, oh, say, Star Wars Episode II: Revenge of the Sith two minutes before the actual feature starts in order to avoid the asinine Coca-Cola and Juicy Fruit ads, as well as trailers for The Fantastic Four, well, you may find yourself without a place to park your arse. But it is encouraging that one of these corporations has finally started to bend a little bit to incessant complaints from its customers about being subjected to advertising after having paid $10 or more for the privilege of the theatrical experience, which is, after all, supposed to be substantially different from watching television. Theater chains always counter that the pre-show "entertainment" helps them defray the high cost of the movie exhibition business, while always failing to mention that the real culprit here may just be their own overzealous construction of too many movie theaters in which to exhibit a very limited amount of mainstream Hollywood blockbuster fare. And really, by telling you that Star Wars Episode III really starts at 7:15, and not the advertised 7:00, they're not exactly telling you something you couldn't have figured out by employing your handy Texas Instruments calculator to do a few fancy goezintas. It's a minor concession to complaints, that's all, but if the complaints keep pouring in, maybe the concessions will start to become a little more meaningful.

2 comments:

  1. In the bay area, they haven't built a cineplex for every city block, as it seems they have down there, not yet anyway (where would they put them, for one thing?). But I avoid the AMC chain, the Metreon in SF, and others which brazenly show ten minutes or so of commercials before beginning the previews; Century Theatres advertises in the paper that they show no commercials, and they're true to their word, so I go to that chain for my big releases (and of course to the Piedmont or some other funky old theater for less mainstream fare). Does Century follow this policy down there? I just won't go to theaters which show commercials if I can possibly avoid it.
    I saw a movie in Italy last year (it had to be the oldest movie theater I've been in by far: the building was certainly constructed at least two hundred years ago as a live theater), and they showed NO previews or commercials. Eh??? Maybe because it was the once-a-week foreign language film: this week's feature is in English, and it's "Man on Fire".

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  2. A few years ago when I was visiting my brother in Detroit, we decided to go to the movies. I was really surprised to find that this theater actually started the movie at the time advertised. If you wanted to see the 'pre-show entertainment,' you had to arrive early. I can't remember what chain it was, but I do remember thinking how very, very cool it was. Would that some local theater chain do the same.

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