This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, but it really hit me the other day when I went to see Disclosure Day.
Now, I realize this is going to make me sound like Andy Rooney complaining about God-knows-what at the end of 60 Minutes, which is a dated reference even for me, but has anyone else noticed that the time listed for a movie barely means anything anymore?
We reserve a seat for a movie. Not a half hour of commercials. Not a loyalty program presentation. Not EIGHT trailers, soda ads, premium format promos, a couple random-ass Minions spots, and finally a trailer that fakes you out by telling you not to text during the movie while everyone in the auditorium is currently texting because the movie hasn’t started yet.
At some point, the whole thing stopped feeling like a pre-show and started feeling like an opening act that won’t leave the stage.
And look, I knew Disclosure Day was going to be long. The movie is already pushing two and a half hours, which is fine. I like a long movie when it earns that time. But when you add close to 30 minutes of ads and trailers on top of that, it changes the whole night. Now I’m not just going to see a movie. I’m wondering what I’m going to eat when I get home, and how pissed my dogs are going to be when I walk through the door past their dinner time like I did it on purpose. I know for a fact at least one of my four dogs can read clocks.
To be clear, I’m not anti-trailer. I run the trailer channels. Trailers are part of my job, and I love when a good one hits with a crowd. That’s part of the fun of going to the movies. But there’s a difference between a few trailers before the movie and a pre-show that feels like it should have its own runtime listed online. The problem isn’t really the trailers. It’s everything around them. The premium screen promo for the premium screen I am already sitting in. The rewards program reminder. The concession ad after I already paid too much for concessions. The phone reminder after I’ve been sitting there long enough to start having actual thoughts. At a certain point, enough is enough.
I know theaters need to make money. I’m not pretending otherwise. The business has been through hell. Attendance isn’t what it used to be. Ads bring in revenue. Trailers sell upcoming movies. I get all of that. But there has to be some kind of balance, because right now the people getting punished are the ones who actually showed up.
That’s the part that bugs me. If I’m sitting in the theater, I did the thing everyone keeps telling movie fans to do. I left the house. I reserved the seat. I didn’t wait for streaming. I chose the big screen. So why does it feel like my reward is sitting through 25 to 30 minutes of stuff before the movie I came to see actually starts?
And that feels even stranger now because every other part of our lives has trained us to skip all this bullshit.
We skip YouTube ads. We skip podcast ads. We skip streaming intros. We skip recaps. We hit the 30-second button without thinking about it. If a streaming service gives us the option to skip the opening credits, most of us hit that button before the animation even finishes loading, unless it’s something metal as fuck like the Gachiakuta intro. Imagine if we could do that at the theater.
But before anyone says, ‘Just show up late,’ we already do, Jobin. Moviegoers have started treating showtimes like a suggestion. If the app says 7:00, people walk in at 7:17 with popcorn like they’re arriving right on schedule. And most of the time, they are. They miss the ads, catch the last trailer or two, and sit down right before the movie starts.
But here’s the problem: it doesn’t always work. Sometimes the pre-show feels endless. Sometimes it’s weirdly short. For example, a couple weeks ago my buddy Bennett went to see Backrooms, and the movie actually started 10 minutes after the scheduled start time. He said about 30 people missed the opening scene because they were trying to avoid all the ads and the same dumbass “guess the line from the movie” we’ve been seeing for the past several months. Come on, Regal…we all know it’s not “I’m king of…high stakes poker.”
It also screws with concessions more than theaters probably want to admit. They obviously want me to buy the extra big-ass drink, but why the hell would I do that when the movie is already long and I don’t know when it actually starts? I usually hit the bathroom right before the feature begins. That’s my move. That’s the adult move. You time it out so you’re not leaving during something important. Don’t punish me for staying hydrated throughout the day.
And the popcorn situation is even worse. If I get a large popcorn, half of it is gone before the movie starts. Listen, I’m not proud of that, but I’m not going to lie about it. You put a giant bucket of popcorn in my lap and make me sit there for half an hour, what do you think is going to happen? That buttery topping has, to loosely quote So I Married an Axe Murderer, “a secret addictive chemical in the butter to make you crave it fortnightly.” By the time the studio logo comes up, I’m already digging around for the good pieces like a raccoon.
Again, I know this is not a real tragedy. Nobody needs to start a charity because I ate too much popcorn before Disclosure Day. But all of this affects the moviegoing experience before the movie even starts.
“So, Mike, what should be done here since you have all the answers?”
Well, it seems pretty simple. Give us two times.
Pre-show starts at 7:00.
Feature starts at 7:25.
That’s it. If someone loves trailers, great. Show up at 7:00. Watch every trailer. Enjoy the ads. Join the rewards program…hell, I signed up for Regal Unlimited. Knock yourself out. If someone just wants to see the movie, they can show up closer to the actual feature. Parents can plan better. People with clock-reading dogs can plan better. People who don’t want to gamble with their bladder can plan better.
Nobody is asking theaters to kill the pre-show entirely. I don’t want that either. Part of going to the movies is the build-up. I like the lights going down. I like the shift in the room. I like the feeling that everyone is settling in for the same thing. But the build-up should not feel longer than some movies on Tubi.
Theaters keep telling us movies are better on the big screen, and I still believe that. But if they want people to keep treating the theatrical experience like it’s something special, they should treat the audience’s time like it matters.
Because right now, the question isn’t whether trailers are part of the fun. They are.
The question is whether a 7:00 movie should actually start somewhere near 7:00.
So now I turn this to you all. Are pre-shows getting out of hand, or am I just slowly turning into the guy at the end of the bar complaining that movie theaters used to mean something, man? Do you show up on time, or have you started walking in like most of us? And while we’re being honest, should I change my profile pic because I look like a pretentious dweeb? Sound off in the comments!
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