Friday, April 15, 2016

AMC will not allow texting in their movie theaters. The internet has spoken.


Earlier this week, AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron said the company might allow people to use their phones during some film screenings, but today he made an abrupt about-face. "There will be no texting allowed in any of the auditoriums at AMC Theaters," Aron said in a statement. "Not today, not tomorrow, and not in the foreseeable future."

The original idea was to entice more young people to go to the movies by giving them permission to text while they were watching something. While no official plan was in place, Aron suggested the theater chain might have specific texting sections, or entire texting-friendly theaters. But this idea was largely met with disapproval from audiences, and Aron's condescending description of young people didn't help matters: "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 told Variety.


Almost as soon as the Variety story came out, AMC apparently received a lot of online pushback. "We have heard loud and clear that this is a concept our audience does not want," Aron said. "In this age of social media, we get feedback from you almost instantaneously and, as such, we are constantly listening. Accordingly, just as instantaneously, this is an idea we have relegated to the cutting room floor."

No comments:

Post a Comment