Blame the way studios market their films now. Films are designed to open big and close in a few weeks. Unfortunately, the deal that theaters have with studios is that the studio takes the lion's share of the box in the first week, and the longer the film runs, the greater the percentage the theater keeps. This made sense 30, 40 years ago when films opened slowly and could spend months in one (single screen) theater. It was a way to get theaters to keep their movies running instead of the competition's. Now, movies are in and out of theaters so fast the theater owners hardly get a sniff of the receipts. All the money comes from concessions and advertising.
The last several times I've been to the movies, there haven't been commercials. I definitely remember when there were 4-6 flat-out commercials after the lights went down and before the eleventy previews started. But now the commercials are gone and they all have some variation on the same thing...that mix of movie/TV promos and commercials, hosted by some cheeser, running on a loop before the lights go down.
Mine showed WAY more than I've ever seen before a movie before. And not just commercials, but tons of banner ads. I felt like I was at a recruitment drive. I just chalked it up to freebies for their involvement in the movie.
I saw Ratatouille last night, and I was shocked that there weren't any commercials. A lot of trailers, but no commercials. What did surprise me is that they tacked two separate trailers for "Underdog" onto it, but that's another matter entirely.
It would make perfect sense, but I think it was just a shrewd move on local recruiters to use the theater, rather than a direct deal with the studio.
Guess things have gotten bad since I last saw a movie (hehe... a couple years ago). All I remember was a couple of quick ads before the movie, but yes, they are pretty annoying. I remember one was for a car. As if I was going to go out and buy a car after I watched the movie.
My theatre listens...sort of. We play a rotating set of ads until 2 minutes before the advertised time of the film. At 2 minutes before, we play a couple of 'national' spots. At the advertised time, we start our 4 trailers (5-10 minutes), then the 15 second Dolby ad, then we start the film. So, no product ads are shown after start time. We actually have people complain when, due to a projection problem, they can't see or heard the ads on-screen. As long as we don't play them after the advertised film start time, I don't have a problem with 'em. Of course, even if I did have a problem, not like I could change it. It's not my name on the building. -Tony!
I don't mind comercials so long as they are part of the pre-movie crap. That junk they play half hour before the movie (Movie Watcher Network, Sony Sneak Peek) is where they belong. But ones the movie time hits, it's previews for other movies only.
What was really weird, was that on Monday, July 2nd, I saw the first showing of Transformers in the area, and they only had one preview. No commercials, no other previews. Just the preview for the J.J. Abrams movie that doesn't have a name, just a release date for January '08. It was so awesome, I couldn't believe the movie started right after that. Then this past Friday I saw Transformers again. 4-6 commercials, and probably at least 5 previews, including the J.J. Abrams one. What the hell?? You're already overcharging me on everything else, you'd think I could avoid a few damn commercials.
We went to a matine(can't spell and even FF is having a problem figuring out what I'm typing), so we wouldn't have to pay as much. It was still $5.75 for each of us. Then $4.25 for a large drink. Its bullshit!
I don't mind, I'm usually off in my own world, thinking about how the movie is gonna be. Hate commercials on TV though, especially FOX. You show us the damn 1min intro, then cut to a 3min commercial!
