The Rise and Fall of AMC Theaters' Horrendous Idea

In a recent interview, CEO of AMC Theaters Adam Aron said that he was open to the idea of allowing texting in some of their theaters, in order to entice more young people to go to the movies. If that sounds ridiculous to you, congratulations. You’re a person who still has at least a shred of respect and decency left in your body. Allowing people to use their phone in a theater is a terrible, terrible idea, and hearing Aron’s justification for why the company was considering it made it even worse.

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 says. “You can’t tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone. That’s not how they live their life.

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I’m sure the surgery a 22-year-old would have to cut off their arm would be performed with only nerve blockers, because we can not expect the young people to be without their phones for as long as it would take to put them under general anesthesia. That reasoning is garbage, because I don’t know about the rest of you but I have seen all kinds of people- young, old, and everything in between- on their phones at the movies. It has nothing to do with generation or age, it has to do with certain people being rude as hell.

Are you an international super spy? A world renowned neurosurgeon on call? The president? If not, then you can go two hours without checking your phone. Thankfully, there is a movie theater CEO who doesn’t think that the best way to combat a-hole behavior is by leaning into it. Tim League is the founder of the Alamo Drafthouse chain, which is very proudly anti-phone. As in, they will literally kick you out if you disturb others by texting or talking. They’re my kind of people. League responded to AMC’s potential policy by saying:

You can only be immersed in a story if you are focused on it. If while watching a film you are intermittently checking your email, posting on social media, chatting with friends, etc., there is no way you are fully engaged in the story on screen. I find that to be disrespectful to the creators, those who make the very existence of cinema possible.

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Even though AMC would have only had certain theaters be texting friendly, it’s the principal of the thing. Apparently everyone who is not the worst agreed with that sentiment because the reaction to Aron’s interview was swift and appropriately merciless, and made it perfectly clear that AMC may gain the patronage of texters, but were going to lose pretty much everyone else. To their credit, they seemed to get the message loud and clear. A few days later Adam Aron released a statement saying that due to the backlash the plan to allow texting was being abandoned, and instead focus will be placed on things like making seating more comfortable and improving the rewards program. I got an email about it, and it had a lot of bold and ALL CAPS. It seems shocking to me that they didn’t know how upset people would be.

I will fully admit that I’m not the most laid-back moviegoer. I get irritated when people wait until the movie starts to make all kinds of noise by opening their snacks even though they’ve had 15 minutes of previews to get ready. I hate when people bring a child that is way to young for a certain movie into the theater, because I know that the kid is going to be fussing the whole time. My standards are high, so while I’m glad that AMC backed down I’m still mildly annoyed that they entertained such a stupid idea in the first place. But at least for now I can cross finding a new movie theater off my list, since it looks like it’s not going to be necessary after all. Now if they could just do something about charging $12 for a bag of candy, we’d be golden.