Last week, Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Entertainment, revealed to Variety some possible ways the company will improve AMC movie theaters and attract more moviegoers, but the immediate public outcry caused them to scrap one of these ideas on Friday.
The plan was to allow, in one way or another, the use of cell phones in theaters, primarily for texting. Aron explained that this would draw in millennials who are going out to see movies less often every year. “When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone, don’t ruin the movie, they hear please cut off your left arm at the elbow. You can’t tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone. That’s not how they live their life,” he stated.
You could roll your eyes at this overused, broad generalization of millennials as tech addicts who can’t look away from their phones, even while preoccupied by a two hour movie, but AMC canceled the idea in response to people who were more upset by this breaking of movie theater etiquette.
Aron explained that AMC would find a way to keep texting from disturbing other audience members, like having a section of seats for cell phone use or making individual auditoriums “more texting friendly.” However, many of the complaints seemed to be in reaction to how we typically think of distracting phones in a theater where a stranger next to or in front of you pulls out their phone and the blinding light keeps you from enjoying the movie. This is just plain rude behavior, but AMC’s solutions could keep that from happening by grouping together everyone who wants the option to text and distancing them from everyone who would rather keep their phones off.
While it’s not true that everyone of our generation feels like their phone is a part of their soul, there are plenty of people, older folks included, who wouldn’t mind having the option. Some people could be expecting an important message or email, maybe they’d like to look up information on the movie while they watch or they could text people they’re with so they don’t have to be potentially even more distracting by talking.
Technology is always advancing to make life easier and to be more convenient, so why wouldn’t some people take advantage of that? In fact, this is one of the reasons why millennials in particular aren’t visiting theaters as often because movies are now so easily accessible from the comfort of our own couches. For a tech-savvy person to make the effort to go to a theater at all shows at least some commitment to what makes the movie theater experience so special, so this isn’t about pitting obnoxious millennials against traditional old-timers. There’s definitely a way to meet in the middle. After all, there isn’t a wrong way to watch a movie, even the bad ones, as long as you’re awake and paying attention–most of the time.