For some, the adverts that precede the start of a film are the bane of a trip to the cinema; for others, they are a useful buffer as you stand in the popcorn queue.
But for one man in India, the lengthy marathon of cinema advertising was so infuriating that he took the matter to the courts – and won.
Abhishek MR, a 30-year-old man from the southern city of Bangalore, had booked a trip to the cinema with friends in December last year to watch wartime drama Sam Bahadur.
But while the scheduled time he had booked the ticket for was 4.05pm, he had to sit through 25 minutes of adverts for upcoming features and commercial items such as homewares, mobile phones and cars before the film actually began.
Having planned to return to work straight after the film, Abhishek MR was angered by what he felt was a costly disruption to his life. He filed a lawsuit against PVR Inox, India’s largest cinema multiplex chain, stating that: “The complainant could not attend other arrangements and appointments which were scheduled for the day and has faced losses that cannot be calculated in terms of money as compensation.”
That 15 min ad break is what I'd be sueing about. Right in the middle of the movie? Asinine.
When streaming started producing their own shows I noticed a huge change: the shows stopped building themselves around the ads that were no longer shown. No more mid-episode cliff hangers and reintroductions upon return every ~11 mins.
How cheap would cinema feel if movies had to do that?
Its a 15 min bathroom and snack break that they play ads during.
Yeah it’s not an ad break it’s an interval (like for stage plays).
US cinemas used to do that a long time ago. I believe it was so they could change out the reel on movies and give people a chance to go buy food without missing the movie.