My most recent visit to Regal’s movie theater in Plymouth Meeting, PA was a disgrace due to their 47 minute long pre-show. Yes, you read that correctly......47 (friggin) minutes!
On Tuesday, June 21st, a friend and I bought X-Men: First Class tickets at the Regal Plymouth Meeting movie theater in Pennsylvania. These tickets totaled $22 and were for the 10:00pm show. We were seated a little before 10:00pm that evening as the pre-show began, starting with this movie theater’s First Look Program that lasted for approximately 25 minutes.
Next up on the pre-show schedule was commercials that included an advertisement for a mega church. I looked at the time on my cell phone and noticed that it was well after 10:00pm and there was still no sign of a movie until the theater gets darker and title credits start rolling on the big screen. It looks like The Green Lantern is coming on and I get relieved until my friend tells me that the previews are starting now.....which made me realize that I forgot that we came to see X-Men: First Class, not The Green Lantern. Now, you know you’re sitting in a movie theater too darn long when you forget why you came there in the first place.
A second glance at the time showed 10:38pm as movie previews continue at Regal Plymouth Meeting 10. Several movie previews were shown that evening, making the wait for X-Men: First Class even longer. I could've stayed at home or went to a friend’s house and watched two half-hour sitcoms or a one-hour crime drama during the time that I and fellow audience members spent sitting in this movie theater, watching commercials and advertisements for what seems like an eternity when all we are doing is sitting in a room while companies try to sell their wares to us. I did not spend money on this movie ticket to watch commercials for 40+ minutes straight!
X-Men: First Class finally started at about 10:47pm
The movie theater pre-show at Regal Plymouth Meeting 10 was so long, I wrote the majority of this blog post on my iPod while sitting in the theater waiting to be entertained. This experience almost makes me want to reduce my visits to movie theaters and rent more. Another solution to prevent a similar experience in the future may be to only visit movie theaters who screen short pre-show programming and just rent whatever movies I want to watch that they don’t have playing there.
The average movie theater probably shows 15-20 minutes of pre-show content before playing a movie; probably less than 15 minutes if it’s an independent movie theater or small arthouse cinema. Granted, this particular screening was not sold-out but Regal Plymouth Meeting 10 had several people including myself waiting for twice as long as movie theater audiences should have to wait when they show up for a specific showtime.
“Are you not entertained?” - Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) in “Gladiator”
NO, I was not and am most certainly NOT entertained....at least when it comes to movie theater pre-shows at Regal Plymouth Meeting 10.
What was the longest movie theater pre-show that YOU ever experienced?
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