Disclaimer: If you’re a movie theater who is taking concrete steps to make the moviegoing experience nuisance-free for the audience thank you and feel free to ignore this ❤️
Last week I attended an advance screening for Disclosure Day (brag) (thanks Emily) and about ten minutes into the movie someone started scrolling on their phone, brightness setting on max. Before I could even get upset though, someone from the studio team came over to warn them and made them put their phone away for the rest of the movie. See how easy it all can be! So why is this level of care reserved for special screenings or exclusive to smaller, independent theaters?
One thing about me is I love a multiplex. I’m a patron of many independent theaters but also frequent several AMCs and find their predictability comforting. However, I feel increasingly like once we enter a theater, we’re left in there alone to fend for ourselves. People talking? Ask them to shut up and pray they comply and not start a fight. People on their phones? Switch seats so the brightness doesn’t distract you. Someone brought their crying baby in (yes this happened)? Tough luck, book another showing and pray that one is quiet. Yeah people have definitely gotten weirder and less considerate of others in the past decade, but do the establishments not bear any responsibility in all this?
Last month, AMC recorded its highest May attendance in 7 years, with Obsession and Backrooms being the two unlikely crowd pleasers that drew in a younger demographic. This is great! What’s not great was the amount of people who encountered horrible audience behavior and had their experience of the films ruined. And listen, teenagers are teenagers. Their frontal lobes are still developing and they may not yet have learned how to behave in a theater, but this is why we have establishments setting and enforcing rules: Do not talk, turn your phone off, don’t do anything that ruins other people’s experience. The rules are indeed set, but the enforcing at the moment seems to be up to the other patrons who are also there to watch a movie, not play kindergarten teacher. For the life of me I don’t understand how the cafe down my street can enforce a strict “no laptops after 5pm” rule, and huge, established movie theater chains can not figure this out.
I swear I have vivid memories of movie theater ushers growing up who popped in periodically to make sure no one’s talking or misbehaving. I KNOW I have recent memories of a Broadway usher who kicked someone out for briefly glancing at their phone. So why do major movie theaters still exclusively employ young people who are definitely not getting paid enough to confront an unruly patron? Is it really so hard to hire one (1) trained professional who can pop in and out of rooms, to at least give the illusion of deterrence?
6 years after the shutdown, people are clearly doing their part to “save movies” and “bring moviegoing back” and all the other slogans these gigantic companies use when it benefits them. We are out here spending our hard-earned money to patronize these theaters and help them thrive. It’s time for them to meet us halfway and regulate these glaring issues before a whole new generation of people define moviegoing as “watching movie on big screen while I scroll on small screen”.
PS. shoutout to Phoebe Bridgers for locking up phones at her concerts. And to her disgruntled fan below for rage-bait attempt of the year.
PPS. AMC I still (and will always) love you. My only intention is for you to be rich and successful.
taking your phone out at an ADVANCE screening too 😭
Bring back the ushers and the flashlights!