AMC CEO says that movie theaters that allow phone use is the future to a younger audience

AMC Entertainment is set to become the largest movie theater operator in the world when its proposed merger with Carmike goes through later this year, and new CEO Adam Aron has some ideas about how to grow even further — appealing more to millennials by letting them use their phones, for instance.

"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 above the elbow,'" Aron tells Variety. "You can't tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone. That's not how they live their life." Aron believes that AMC needs "to reshape our product in some concrete ways so that millennials go to movie theaters with the same degree of intensity as baby boomers went to movie theaters throughout their lives."

The CEO is aware that his company is "going to have to figure out a way to do it that doesn't disturb today's audiences." When asked whether there might be certain sections that allow texting, Aron replies "That's one possibility. What may be more likely is we take specific auditoriums and make them more texting-friendly."

I am okay with this as long as those auditoriums are very clearly marked from hundreds of feet away so as to minimize the chance that I ever accidentally set foot in one.