So I went to see Slumdog Millionaire last night. Terrific movie. I am a little puzzled why with all the national ads running for this movie, a county with 115 first run movie screens and 800,000 this movie is only playing on one screen. The movie has been running here for about a month and the theatre was still pretty packed last night. But that is an entry for another time.
What I wanted to gripe about a little is all the freakin’ ads. I know that you all know about them so it isn’t news but I have never seen so many ads before the previews even started. By the time the movie began to run, I realized, I was no longer interested in seeing it. Fortunately, the story started to appeal to me pretty quickly.
My point is, the movies are hobbling themselves from the very start by running all these ads. I wasn’t in a receptive frame of mind when the show started so the film had to start winning me over right from the beginning. If the movie had only been mediocre or designed to start slow and build, it would have been over before it had begun. No chance, no way, no how. Because movies aren’t live events, the producers and performers can’t sense the audience getting restless the way a person giving an overlong curtain speech can. (or should be sensing) So the ads keep going on and on heedless of how the audience feels.
I am thinking my next wave of promotions for our productions should have the words, “Great Performances, No Ads,” using the absence of ads as a selling point.