Commercials Before Movies...

Kevin Fiore | February 20, 2003
I came across an article on www.comingsoon.net about a lawsuit being filed against Loews Cineplex in Illinois. I hope she wins, so Movie Theaters will rethink putting commercials before movies. You can read the full articel here: http://comingsoon.net/cgi-bin/archive/fullnews.cgi?newsid1045753092,19556," TARGET="_blank">http://comingsoon.net/cgi-bin/archive/fullnews.cgi?newsid1045753092,19556,

Scott Hardie | February 21, 2003
I'm not sure the lady has any legal grounds... but she's got great popular support. Who doesn't hate those commercials? They're aggressive, obnoxious, loud, and moronic. The one I personally dislike the most is the one for Nissan where a sports car races through Prague at 110mph and we get a driver's-eye view. It overwhelms your senses with this adrenaline rush for ninety seconds, then they say, "Don't try this yourself." Is it legal to advertise your product being used to commit numerous dangerous crimes? Especially when the advertisements are being shown to impressionable people who will use that product to commit those same crimes on their own? Should it be legal?

In the theaters' defense, I would like to point out that they're desperate for revenue. I don't mean desperate in the greedy sense, like "How many more millions can we make this year than last year?", but desperate in the literal sense, like "What the fuck can we do to raise some money so we don't go out of business?!" I read film industry news every day, and the past several years have seen a dozen or more national theater chains file for bankruptcy, from Carmike to Goodrich to GMC. Regal and AMC and I think one other are the only ones to avoid bankruptcy, and even they're in the red. Remember, the theaters make little or no money on each ticket sold. They make their money at the concession stands, which are obviously not profitable enough to support the entire operation. So they're trying commercials, and as much as I passionately hate those commercials, I can't blame them for trying. How about running commercials from the closing credits of one showing to the opening frames of the next? More profitable and more interesting than those slides, especially the stupid Coke trivia ones that may possibly have been designed for first-graders.