Soon we may be able to turn up for a movie when it actually starts rather than sitting through many minutes of advertisements and trailers just to see the real thing. A small theater chain in the US is going to start advertising the real time that their moviews begin by declaring on all advertising that the actual start time may be different from the time that the film presentation begins.
“Sometimes I come 10 to 15 minutes later to miss the commercials,” said Angelique Anderson, 52, an artist who lives in Chelsea. Now the challenge will be how close to cut it without ending up where the empty seats have always been when the movie starts, down front in the neck-craning section.
As the NYTimes article states, some people will still want to come early, buy their popcorn and candy, taking their time to get settled for their two hour sit-down. It’s unlikely that those people will now start to come just before the film starts, but by taking the tack of honestly stating the fact that there is a delay in the starting of the movie, Loews Cineplex Entertainment may benefit from a goodwill upswing in attendance. The trick for filmgoers will now be to make sure that there actually are ten minutes of ads before each film: to get into the theatre after the official start and find it has already begun would drive people the other way: out the door.
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wouldn’t that be fantastic – no more mind numbing ads or dire trailers for films you wouldn’t ever want to see – but I would miss the Orange cameo ones!