Too many ads at the movies?

[InvaderEd77]

I just got back from seeing Elf at the movies. Great movie, really funny, but one thing ruined the movie for me. We sat down at the starting time of 4:05 and the commercials started. I've sat through some pretty long ones and this was actually an average group compared to others I've seen.

I got to enjoy...
The Cat in the Hat Mastercard
Two commercials for Kit-Kat "Poppables"
The Army of One
Two Cokes
Fandango
and and ad for the Movie Club that my theater has

After that I thought I would see maybe three short movie previews and then get to enjoy Will Farrel's latest movie since it was now 4:12. I was dead wrong.

I saw the full trailers for
Shrek 2
LOTR: ROTK
Cheaper by the Dozen
Cat in the Hat
Peter Pan
Chasing Liberty
The Perfect Score

All and all, I spent a good half-hour waiting for the movie to start. When it finally did start, I was half done with my popcorn and soda(stupid movie-watching instincts). I wasted a half-hour seeing one new trailer. I could of used that half-hour to watch a TV Show, surf the internet, or even clean my ears out, but instead I was a captive being forced to watch these advertisements. Don't you think that is a little extreme?

What I would perfer is to have commercials air between movies instead of at the beginning of one. All my movie house shows is lame local ads that you could possibly read in the 5 seconds it gets up there and "Coke Trivia". Then I wouldn't mind seeing maybe 15 min. of trailers before the movie.

I remember a time where you saw 2-3 movie trailers and then saw the movie. And the trailers started before the time that the movie was gonna start :eek: ! That time was only 1 1/2 years ago, and how it has changed.

[The Penguin]

Now I don't have this problem at my theaters. We never have any regular commercials other than Fandango.

I guess I haven't kept track of how many trailers we have, but I like them.

[bladeliger]

Heh, i just went through the same thing. I saw Return Of The King on Saturday and the movie started at 11. Well, from 11-11:20 there was this thing called The 20 in which there was 20 min of advertising for all the companies that sponser the theatre. Then we had the regular 10 minutes of commercials that we are used to, followed by the previews then the movie which started well past 11:30 (and stupid me likes to get to the theatre 10 min before the movie time). The movie let out after 3 which made this movie experience over 4 hours long. As if the return of the king needed any help in being a long ass movie. Though I was pleased the the 3 1/2 hours of the movie didnt seem all that long while The 20 seemed more like 8 hours of nonsense.

[Chris Wood]

I agree. Previews are great, but I don't want to see freakin' diamond or restaurant commercials at the theater. It's just plain tacky and annoying. Unfortunately it seems that it's hard for theaters to turn a profit these days so they may have little choice.

[William C. Maune]

I don't have a problem with previews, in fact I really like them. However, the non-movie ads can get annoying. I prefer it the way one of the theatres I go to does it. They start their "pre-show entertainment" X number of minutes before the movie is supposed to start. Thus, the ads get out of the way before the start time, then the previews start, then the movie.

[Mynd Hed]

Are non-preview ads annoying? Hell yes, especially that extremely stupid jeans commerical where the Justin Timberlake lookalike rodeos the beat-up car.

But take away the ads, and they'd just have to jack up ticket prices even more, and we'd all be complaining about that instead.

Given the choice, I'll take the ads.

Although it'd be nice if they could get new trivia questions to show in between the still ads in the pre-previews slideshow more often. I don't go to the movies particularly often, but I've already seen all the ones they show in Flagstaff, Tucson, and Phoenix, and that's just sad.

[Jaguar]

>_< If I wanted to see commercials for the Ford Focus or Tony Hawk's Underground, I could stay at home and watch them on TV, then wait six months for the movie to come out on DVD.

[Good Ol' Batmanuel!]

I don't particularly like having so many previews and ads before a movie, but it is helpful if you're running late so you don't miss any of the movie you're there to see. ;)

[Yuss]

I don't particularly like having so many previews and ads before a movie, but it is helpful if you're running late so you don't miss any of the movie you're there to see. ;)
That's true.

My theater never does the real trivia or scramblers or anything, it's all sponsored (especially the Sierra Mist ones "LEMON-LIME" and "SHOCKINGLY REFRESHING"). And always the same few commercials every time. The Jimmy Fund commercial with the guys putting the kids' names on the building is cute, and the Army commercials are cool and all, but all the movietickets.com and MasterCard commercials, et cetera, are really annoying after the fifth time.

I don't mind trailers at all, but I'm not a movie buff, so the trailers I see are usually new. Meh.

~B+:

[Arxane]

I really don't mind the previews before a movie. In fact, I welcome them with open arms. Why? Because they're often the best part of the entire movie-going experience *cough*AttackoftheClones*cough*

Commercials, on the other hand, are a different story...

[DianaGohan]

I just saw The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King Today. Great movie, BTW. Before it though, there were about 8 movie previews, and 6 Commerical ads (one for Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, and another Cat In The Hat Ad). I think that is a bit much.

[Pilmedium]

Previews are sneaky; they make me think "This looks good," and then when I reconsider later, it would probably be more like trash. After all, that is why they are there. As for the topic at hand...


I remember a time where you saw 2-3 movie trailers and then saw the movie. And the trailers started before the time that the movie was gonna start :eek: ! That time was only 1 1/2 years ago, and how it has changed.

It has not changed that quickly for me. There were a few times like that, but those situations seem to have been mixed with 8 to 13-minute waits before the movie actually starts. At least I never had to put up with a 30-minute delay; I might have gone crazy.

[Zero Signal]

I don't mind the previews for other movies, but I hate the commercials. There's enough product placement in the films themselves with out ads for Coca-Cola, MasterCard, Burger King, and other crap rolling for 20 minutes. One of about a thousand reasons I only see about 3 movies a year at theaters.

[Failure]

Hmm, I haven't really minded the ads... of course I haven't been to the theaters much, but now that I think about it... paying up to $10 for a movie, you'd think that'd be enough to go through a commercial-free experience.

[Mynd Hed]

I just saw The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King Today. Great movie, BTW. Before it though, there were about 8 movie previews, and 6 Commerical ads (one for Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, and another Cat In The Hat Ad). I think that is a bit much.

Wow, that's definitely pushing it. The theatre at which I saw RotK showed fewer previews than they normally do-- I figured that it was because over three hours is long enough for people to be sitting around without insane amounts of trailers as well.

[Matthew Williams]

I think it depends on the theatre. Philly is pretty much ruled by two chains, AMC and Regal Entertainment (which comprises United Artists and Regal Cinemas in our area). Both recently introduced pre-show programs that extensively feature advertising in place of the old "reel of TV commercials" they used to do. AMC introduced MovieWatcher Network, and Regal has "The 2wenty".

AMC's take is very problematic. They have the old slideshow but now intersperse it with the commercials. Then they go into the old "pre-show countdown", whcih was their name for the commercials, they they always used to... now it's on digital and longer than ever. When that's done, it's signifigantly after the starting time when they finally say "Thank you for watching the Movie Watcher network!". At which my friend proceeded to scream "$%#^ YOU, THANKS!" at the screen.

Regal's, by comparison, is much better. I don't know how Regal theatres in other states handle it, but here, The 2wenty replaces the slideshows and stops at around the scheduled start time... for example, at the 7:40 LOTR, it was done at 7:42. The only problem with it I have is that they choose to run their "Welcome to Regal" trailer-type thing before the previews, then they start the feature film immediately after the last trailer. It disrupts the "flow"... plus I really really REALLY liked the old Regal "rollercoaster" thing which this replaced... I don't know if other Regals still run it, but they ain't doing that here. :(

That's my take... if it's like "The 2wenty" I'm actually happy with it, but MovieWatcher Network.. nuh uh.

[TimTwoFace]

Dang right there are too many ads at theatres nowadays. I don't mind the trailers for upcoming movies - yeah, most of them are boring and all, buht at least they're advertising an upcoming product that a moviegoer like me might want to see some time. What I don't like are the ads for products in the theatres - car commercials, pop commercials, cell phone commercials, all that sorta thing - it's just a waste of time, because no one likes it. Of course, they're not gonna go anywhere - I'm sure those advertisements rake in a lot of revenue for the theatre.

-Tim

[Mackenzie Rainelle]

we went to see Return of the King Saturday.

Movie (yes, the movie itself, not the previews, since that's the way the local theater chain is run) was supposed to start at 11:45. Previews would begin before that.
Problems with the projector pushed everything back to 12:15.
Previews and ads added another 30 minutes (I kid you not, and there were only three actual movie previews shown), so the movie actually started at 12:45, an HOUR late.
Movie ended and we exited the theater at about 4:00 or so.

That's entirely too long to sit in a movie theater for ONE movie (a marathon or somethin, I would have understood a four-hour-and-fifteen-minute sit).

Too many ads? Hell yeah.

[StrangerAtaru]

Considering I hear they've been doing crap like this in Europe for years, it was bound to happen within this country. Use to be that we sit down, get a few previews, then go right into the movie after the theater ID. But hey, considering they have us all trapped in a dark theater for several hours, I guess that makes us a captive audience.

BTW: Matthew Williams tale is definately true for around here, especially involving "The 2wenty". While it sounds like they screw it up elsewhere, the whole thing is supposed to start twenty minutes "before" the starting time, not after...

[zimfan3000]

I remember going to see LOTR last Friday with my family and we were sitting at the previews for about fifteen minutes or so.

Ads used to be no more than three or five, now they've tripled the time? What's the point of sticking advertisments that you can see on television in front of movies?

[Corrado]

When I go to National Amusements movie theaters, there's about 10 commercials before the actual previews. I don't mind the coming attractions, of course, but I do mind the advertisements for other stuff.

The last movie I saw "Elf" I saw in a lesser movie theater. That is, isn't wasn't a big company like National Amusements or United Artists. There were about 6 commercials and one actual trailer (Shrek 2.)

To sum up, I hate commercials at movie theaters.

[Elven Moon]

I did notice lately the boom in ads. And I don't really like it. I prefer the old "show commercials and previews while the lights are still on, then dim the lights when the movie starts" like they used to do. Um.. unless they still do so and I don't really notice...

[SNS]

I don't mind the non-movie ads because they sometimes show video game ads (it was cool to see the full version of the SMA4 commercial on the large screen).

[Damien]

While it is needlessly old-school of them, the theatres need to stop with this. I just went to see Something' Gotta Give a few days ago, and the advertisements plus three or four previews took almost a half an hour.

[Tienshin]

I tend to be late to movies for some reason, but I know I can factor in at 15 minutes past the start time of the movie as a grace period to get in my seat, so in that regard they don't bother me very much.

Lemon ---> Lemonade.

[purplehairedwonder]

I tend to be late to movies for some reason, but I know I can factor in at 15 minutes past the start time of the movie as a grace period to get in my seat, so in that regard they bother me very much.

Lemon ---> Lemonade.

True, but then there are those movies like LOTR where you have to get there early enough so you can find a decent seat. When we went to LOTR last Friday, we were there 30 minutes early anyway, then sat through all the trivia on the screen, a bunch of TV commercials (which was the first time I've seen TV commercials at a movie) and then 4 or 5 trailers. I like the trailers, don't get me wrong, just TV commercials? Seems like a little much. Especially for a 3 and 1/2 hour movie.

[sun]

How many are taking this side? eh? Well those ads keep the theaters open,,,,I saw at this board a complaint about closing down of a local movie theather that someone loved....I cannot tell you how many of my favorite theaters have closed....I don't like the ads, but if it will keep more theaters open, well, bring them on,,,Just add an extra ten or 12 minutes to the starting time, and come late....I'd rather watch ads, then not watch the movie at my favorite show...Bring on those ads.

[ToonamiGir]

I live in Georgia, so every single movie will start with a promo from Coke.

[GL2k2]

God yes, there are waaayyy too many in theaters nowadays. I almost don't want to get too early, but I love trailers. I think what really pissed me off was when you start seeing commericials that you can watch at home. That ain't right. If they're going to hit us with commericials in theaters, they had better be theatrical. I like the Lego Bionicle ones, and I wouldn't of minded the G.I.Joe CGI commericials from a year ago, but I don't want to see a Coke commericial of a Toyota Matrix. I'm getting tired of this kinda crap.

[Morpheus]

"Dude, that's a chick!"

*vomits*

[Weatherman]

At least most of the movie commercials are good, once time anyway. By the 5th viewing that old Fandango commercial got really anoying, epsecially when you know someone who works at a theatre and see a bunch of movies with them over several days. :shrug:

Usually it's only about 5 minutes of commercials here around D.C., and 5-10 minutes of trailers, but sometimes it's 10-15 minutes of commercials and 10 minutes of trailers. That's just too much. It even varies from movie to movie at most of the theatres I go to around here, AMC, Regal, Muvico and Lowes/Cineplex Odeon.