A few weeks ago with popcorn in one hand and a soda in the other, I was settling into my seat to watch Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher. At 130 minutes in length, I knew this movie was a little longer than most. Since I like action movies, I was excited to see this one. As the movie started, time came and went… so did preview after preview after preview. There were so many that I finally looked at my watch and realized I had been watching previews for 19 minutes after the movie was supposed to start! I must admit, I do like previews… ok, some previews, but they finally ended at 24 minutes!
Seriously that is too many for me!
- Have you noticed the same thing – way too many previews?
- Why are they doing this?
- Does this strategy make sense?
- Will the future movie goer show up 10 minutes late to skip some of the previews?
I look forward to reading your comments.
Christine Cook says:
No we know why people start texting. I agree. It’s a bit much. Honestly, my husband and I typically show up about 15 minutes late anymore and catch a couple. We always ask at the point of ticket sale, how long until the movie?
How was Jack Reacher? I may hit a movie this weekend.
C
Ken Keith says:
There is no such thing as “too many” previews.
Bob Graham says:
My brother and I showed up for a showing of “Django Unchained” at a theater near his house in Upstate NY only to find that the movie started on time and we missed the opening minutes. (GREAT movie, BTW)
Tal Shahar says:
I usually love previews, but I think there has to be a system in which you know one simple question:
1. How many minutes of previews will there be after the scheduled start time of the movie?
This one simple step will cause me to go to one movie theatre versus another one.
It is not a difficult system to apply. For example, movie times: 5:00 P.M, 7:00 P.M, 9:00 P.M (24 minutes previews after scheduled start time)
It benefits the time sensitive movie goers, the movie goers that are curious if they are too late to catch a movie, and the movie goers that enjoy watching previews. Why hasn’t anyone done this yet?????
Fee says:
I tend to not even notice them, but this last time my love and I went to see This is Forty, I was really annoyed after the third or fourth preview. I can appreciate that it is their way of target marketing, to a captive audience, within the theater, but Reality is 99% of time I can’t even remember that one preview that I saw that I would’ve really liked to have seen the actual movie.
Al says:
“Why are they doing this?”
I suspect it’s because it was a Tom Cruise movie which was assumed would draw a mass of viewers. This would translate into getting as much advertisement in front of as many viewers as possible. Next time you’re at subsequent block busters check and see if this continues to happen.
Then compare this to a “smaller” film such as “Amour” and see if there’s a difference.
I’m not a movie goer but my intuition tells me bigger pictures will have more previews.
kenyon says:
And if you get into the movie theater BEFORE the trailers you can see tons of ads for products and promos for TV shows. The other things that drive me crazy about the hour long assault on screen before the movie is that the movie themselves are getting longer. Lincoln is nearly 3 hours. Django is about the same. There was a day when almost every film was right at about 2 hours in length and now they are pushing 3 hours. Les Miserables was that long too. The only solution is to do what I now do which is to add the 15 minutes of trailers to the schedule and come see one or two before the movie begins. Also, if anyone goes to the AMC theaters please, oh please, create a new open to replace those teenagers watching the sky from the seat in the forest. I never want to see it again!!!
Ed Sugar says:
I was flipping around the dial and caught a few minutes of the NFL Network on Saturday. Believe it or not but a number of companies that have bought ads for the Super Bowl next Sunday are running trailers for their Super Bowl ads. That is correct – we now have commercials promoting future commercials. Amazing.