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  • When is this movie really going to start? I’ve been here half an hour.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ience-waiting/

    When is this movie really going to start? I’ve been here half an hour.

    By Richard Zoglin
    December 27, 2023 at 5:45 a.m. EST

    It took me a few weeks to get out to see the new Martin Scorsese film, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; the running time of three hours and 26 minutes was pretty daunting. Still, on a recent weeknight, I trekked to my local multiplex in New York City for an 8:30 p.m. showing. Since I knew it would be a long evening, I made sure to arrive a few minutes late, to miss some of the pre-show ads and trailers.

    Not late enough. I still had to sit through several minutes of previews and AMC Theatres promotions, before Leonardo DiCaprio finally appeared on the screen. But not in the movie — he was interviewing Scorsese about the historical background of the film, which recounts the organized murders of Osage tribe members in 1920s Oklahoma. After three or four minutes of their gab, the theater finally darkened, and the film seemed ready to start. But wait — there was Scorsese again, addressing the audience to say, once more, how honored he was to “tell this powerful historical story in the most authentic way possible.” By the time the movie dawdled onto the screen, a three-hour-26-minute film had ballooned into a nearly four-hour evening.

    Scorsese is one of many filmmakers and critics who have campaigned for seeing movies the old-fashioned way — on the big screen in theaters, rather than through streaming services at home. But I wonder how many of these film lovers (who generally see movies in a comfy screening room, where they start on time and no one has to sit through ads for PlayStation) have actually been to a movie theater lately. It has become a grueling experience.

    Set aside the $10 bags of popcorn and the confusing array of projection formats — Imax, 4DX, Dolby — that can boost the ticket price to $25 or more. And I’m not complaining about audience members who talk and scan their cellphones during the movie; complaints about unruly patrons date back to the days when people used to read the title cards aloud in silent films. No, it’s the bloated running times of so many current films and the expanding pre-show folderol that have turned moviegoing into an endurance test.

    There once was a time (it now seems quaint to recall) when you had to go to Europe to see commercials in a movie theater; American movie houses were blessedly free of them. Not anymore. On another trip to the multiplex, to see Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” (which weighs in at a relatively compact two hours and 38 minutes), I counted a dozen commercials, for everything from Hyundai to M&M’s, before the Regal voice of God told us to silence our cellphones and “enjoy the show” — after which came another slew of ads, for various Pepsi drinks; six trailers for upcoming movies (because where better than a screening of “Napoleon” to look for fans of “Drive-Away Dolls” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom”?); and a pitch for the Regal Unlimited subscription plan. Thirty minutes in hard-sell captivity before the movie finally started.

    Don’t get me wrong: I love going to the movies. After the pandemic, I returned to the theaters much sooner than most of my friends. But it’s becoming harder to justify that ordeal at the multiplex, rather than waiting a few weeks for the film to show up on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

    Watching a movie on the big screen can be absorbing, even thrilling. But it’s not a religious experience. My blood pressure spikes every time I see those platform heels stepping through a puddle on the way to a movie theater — the opening of Nicole Kidman’s inescapable promotional spot for AMC Theatres.

    “We come to this place … for magic,” she intones reverently, as she settles into a seat in a deserted theater, stares beatifically up at the screen and rhapsodizes about “that indescribable feeling we get when the lights begin to dim. … Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this.” AMC began running the spot two years ago, to encourage people to return to theaters after the pandemic. By now it’s the most grating commercial pitch this side of the Kars4Kids jingle.​
    I occasionally have people who haven't been here before come late for the movie and say, "It hasn't started yet, has it?"

    Well, yes, the movie actually started twenty minutes ago.

    I guess they're used to theatres that play all kinds of crap before the show starts and that doesn't happen here.

  • #2
    I have not seen Nicole Kidman’s promotion for AMC theaters. But, the Loft Cinema here in Tucson runs a REALLY GREAT promo that is a series of clips from movies of people going to the movies. It finishes with a clip of Amélie in the theater. Really nice! And no booming LFE!

    Comment


    • #3
      Frank, it's time for you to put up posters (and maybe something on your marquee) a phrase to the effect of:

      "Don't want to sit through 30 minutes of crap before the feature? Come on in!"

      Any theatre that is ad free..oh wait, here's another: "Our shows are ad-free." ..should be shouting it out loud and clear.

      "We don't waste your time on pre show fluff."

      You get the idea.

      It saves the patrons time and would save you having to answer the "Did the show start yet?" question ad nauseam.

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      • #4
        Tony... To that, my customers will always say, the previews give people time to get refreshments and then find a seat. And watching the first crowds of the day in many theaters over the last 40 years, that's mainly what I observed. You have to remember there is zero profit in running the film itself. The profit is sitting in the refreshment stand out in the lobby.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Tony Bandiera Jr View Post
          Frank, it's time for you to put up posters (and maybe something on your marquee) a phrase to the effect of:

          "Don't want to sit through 30 minutes of crap before the feature? Come on in!"

          Why not advertise the fact that, when you say the movie starts at X-O'clock, the MOVIE starts at X-O'clock?

          If your movie is supposed to start at 8:00 p.m. but you have fifteen minutes of ads and trailers, the show should start at 7:45 p.m.

          That's how they do it in other countries, isn't it?

          With digital movies, running on playlists timed to the second, it should be relatively easy to determine the showtime-to-feature offset. Shouldn't it?

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          • #6
            There was a link to that amc promo in the original article.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiEeIxZJ9x0

            It's actually not bad.

            Comment


            • #7
              If your movie is supposed to start at 8:00 p.m. but you have fifteen minutes of ads and trailers, the show should start at 7:45 p.m.

              That's how they do it in other countries, isn't it?​
              I guarantee you that if any theater did that, there would be a NEVER ENDING series of people who would arrive late for the movie, having not gotten the message about showtime being movie-time.

              We are in the same situation here though. It always amazes me how fast people can be "trained" for some things (like day-and-date-on-video) but can NEVER be trained on other things.

              We do play a 5-minute ad package, but it starts 5 minutes before the showtime. Our feature always starts about 9 to 12 minutes or so after showtime, figuring three or four trailers, a "Welcome" clip, and a "silence your phones" clip. It's been that way literally for the whole 48+ years I've worked here and probably many years before that. Still, we get the occasional people wandering in 35 minutes past showtime saying "We haven't missed the start of the movie, have we?"

              Here in the digital era, if we have a big hit movie, I'll usually prepare a second playlist that deletes consists of just a couple of extra trailers plus the feature. That way if there is still a crowd in concessions, I can stop the show after the last "regularly-scheduled" trailer and put up the alternate playlist to buy an extra five minutes or so, so most people are seated when the feature starts.

              Comment


              • #8
                Mike...I've had the request before...about holding a movie when the manager has to be on the stand to help with the crowd. My idea was to have all shows with a cue to the automation (though you could omit that part, almost all of my installs has a traditional automation system) that tells the automation to pause the show. The automation checks to see if the stand has the "pause" show status set, if not, it blows through the cue and the audience is none-the-wiser. If the pause is set on the stand, it will pause the server there and wait for the stand to release the show (hit the play button). Naturally, you can augment this with a status light so the stand is aware that the pause is set (and even when the show arrives at the feature and is paused). This would keep you from needing multiple shows and one can initiate the pause if suddenly the line grew. It is pretty trivial to do on the eCNA and, I'm sure, on the JNIOR as it just runs a macro that checks to see if a flag is set. With many servers, GPIO could be implemented to do such a thing.

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                • #9
                  As a movie-goer I feel as though I'm royally screwed. There are big drawbacks to arriving on time, before the show begins as well as trying to game the pre-show and deliberately arrive late.

                  The damned pre-shows have grown longer. Oh, and there's actually TWO freaking pre-shows now.

                  Before the movie's start time the theater is already going to be playing TV commercials and other "screen vision" crap. The image on screen is smaller and the volume is lower. In the past the screen's curtains would be closed and you would only hear some kind of house music. Or there might be a static slide show on screen. Now it's like the TV is turned on and it's stuck in an endless commercial break.

                  When the actual pre-show finally begins the image on screen gets bigger and the sound gets louder. "Hey everyone, it's time for a half hour of TV commercials and a bunch of movie trailers!

                  It's rare for any pre-show package at a major chain theater to run any less than 25 minutes anymore. So why not arrive late? We bought reserved seat tickets after all, right? There are multiple problems with that maneuver. You'll be trying to reach your seat in a dark auditorium, tripping over the legs of other people on the way to your seat. But what happens when you find the seat(s) you reserved are already filled? If the person(s) don't want to move what do you do? Theaters are so badly under-staffed they're ill-equipped to deal with these situations. We've seen incidents where people will resort to acts of violence and even murder over a cinema seat.

                  I guess what I need to do is keep arriving at the theater early, but put on some Goddamn noise-cancelling headphones, listen to my own music and browse the Internet on my phone until the movie actually starts.​ This is yet another one of those things that makes watching movies at home more inviting (and safer). After all the theatrical release window is so stupidly short. It's not like I would be waiting a year and then watching the show in pan-and-scan format on a tiny, low-res square TV.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Bobby Henderson View Post
                    As a movie-goer I feel as though I'm royally screwed. There are big drawbacks to arriving on time, before the show begins as well as trying to game the pre-show and deliberately arrive late.

                    The damned pre-shows have grown longer. Oh, and there's actually TWO freaking pre-shows now.

                    Before the movie's start time the theater is already going to be playing TV commercials and other "screen vision" crap. The image on screen is smaller and the volume is lower. In the past the screen's curtains would be closed and you would only hear some kind of house music. Or there might be a static slide show on screen. Now it's like the TV is turned on and it's stuck in an endless commercial break.

                    When the actual pre-show finally begins the image on screen gets bigger and the sound gets louder. "Hey everyone, it's time for a half hour of TV commercials and a bunch of movie trailers!

                    It's rare for any pre-show package at a major chain theater to run any less than 25 minutes anymore. So why not arrive late? We bought reserved seat tickets after all, right? There are multiple problems with that maneuver. You'll be trying to reach your seat in a dark auditorium, tripping over the legs of other people on the way to your seat. But what happens when you find the seat(s) you reserved are already filled? If the person(s) don't want to move what do you do? Theaters are so badly under-staffed they're ill-equipped to deal with these situations. We've seen incidents where people will resort to acts of violence and even murder over a cinema seat.

                    I guess what I need to do is keep arriving at the theater early, but put on some Goddamn noise-cancelling headphones, listen to my own music and browse the Internet on my phone until the movie actually starts.​ This is yet another one of those things that makes watching movies at home more inviting (and safer). After all the theatrical release window is so stupidly short. It's not like I would be waiting a year and then watching the show in pan-and-scan format on a tiny, low-res square TV.
                    The only advantage theaters have these days are 1) Large screen, and 2) A large audience to share the experience with. Living rooms have become home theaters, and theaters have become large living rooms. I do not watch live TV at home to avoid the commericals, and I avoid theaters that do not post actual show start times so that I can avoid commercials. When you had to wait months or years to watch a movie, there was an incentive to go to a theater. Those days are gone, and will never return. You are not going to keep that audience returning to your theater if that includes annoying the hell out of your customers.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      In the past (2000's and earlier) if there was a new movie I really wanted to see I always felt at least some pressure to see that movie in a cinema. Waiting to watch the movie on VHS or even DVD always involved a major image quality down-grade. If I watched a movie for the first time on DVD and really liked it I'd feel like I missed out not seeing the movie during its theatrical release.

                      Today, if I skip a movie's theatrical release and just wait for it to show up on Max or Prime Video I don't feel like I missed anything at all. The letter-boxed 2K image I see in the cinema looks the same as the letter-boxed 1080p image on my big-ass TV at home. Streaming sucked 10 or so years ago when my DSL connection topped out at only 3 megs per second. Now I'm getting over 600Mb/s just on my WiFi connection and up to 1 Gb/s if hard-wired to the router. That's more than enough to stream 4K to multiple devices at UHD Blu-ray quality levels.

                      Decades ago I did enjoy the experience of watching a good movie with a crowd of other audience members. But this was an era when smart phones didn't exist and people generally had better manners and social skills. Today, I avoid peak time showings at cinemas because the inconsiderate behavior of other audience members has become intolerable.

                      The exclusive theatrical window is the only real advantage cinemas have over home viewing now. The movie studios have totally screwed up the home video market. If they want to grow revenue they need to do two things. One: lengthen the theatrical release window. Two: get into a partnership with cinemas to improve the movie-going experience.​

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                      • #12
                        I am amazed that chains are running commercials after the showtime. Commercials should END AT the showtime. The only advertising after show time should be movie trailers and no more than 10-12 minutes of them.

                        I suppose ad agencies started offering to pay more money for post-showtime ad slots. Money talks. Hell, every streaming service has ads now unless you pay more than the going rate. It does kinda make you wonder why people are so strongly against ads in theaters -- there are ads everywhere else! Unless you PAY MORE.

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                        • #13
                          The ArcLight model was best: NO pre-show, no more than three trailers, feature presentation motion logo, feature. That's what made them legendary and well-missed. You paid extra for your ticket, but it was worth it.

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                          • #14
                            You just described my presentations here, Mark.

                            (Except for the paying extra part, though.)

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                            • #15
                              Looking back 30+ years ago, I should have felt even more privileged watching movies at cinemas in Manhattan. Aside from the 70mm prints that seemed commonplace in that era, the pre-shows at those theaters were very brief. So was the amount of time between shows. If you stayed put you could sit through the movie twice if you wanted to do so.

                              At cinemas like the Ziegfeld the curtains would stay shut 'til showtime. Usually the pre-show would start with one Cineplex Odeon policy trailer. Then you might see one or two trailers (that probably came with the film print). Finally there might be one last "feature presentation" policy snipe. That was it. The whole thing could play in less than 5 minutes. That was certainly true for movies had short teaser trailers on them, such as the 70mm teaser for Total Recall.

                              Obviously chains like AMC look at all the pre-show crap as an additional revenue stream. I wonder if they've actually done any market research on how many customers they turn off with that shit. The two different pre-shows before show time and after show time starts are probably too much for some people to tolerate. I'd be willing to bet they convince a decent number of people to just stay home (or just avoid AMC's theaters) with that glut of advertising. At the rate they're going these chains will probably start showing info-mericals as part of the pre-show.​

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