As head of production at New Line Cinema, Toby Emmerich is not your typical moviegoer. So when he wanted to see "War of the Worlds" the other night, his choice was between seeing the film in a theater with a tub of popcorn or watching it in a screening room at Jim Carrey's house, with a private chef handling the culinary options. Despite this seemingly loaded deck, Emmerich opted for a real theater.
"I love seeing a movie with a big crowd," he says. "But I had no idea how many obnoxious ads I'd have to endure -- it really drove me crazy. After sitting through about 15 minutes of ads, I turned to my wife and said, 'Maybe we should've gone to Jim Carrey's house after all.' "
When DreamWorks marketing chief Terry Press took her young twins to see "Robots" this year, she said, "My own children turned to me and said, 'Mommy, there are too many commercials!' Now, when the lights go halfway down, I'm filled with dread. The whole uniqueness of the moviegoing experience is being eroded by all the endless ads."
You don't have to be an industry insider to be aggravated. Ads are one of the reasons why moviegoers, especially adults, are abandoning theaters this summer. When my favorite music biz blogger, Bob Lefsetz, wrote recently about being bombarded with ads before seeing "Crash" at a local theater, he was deluged with supportive mail from incensed ad-loathing readers. As Barry Ritholtz put it: "The commercials just add insult to an already declining experience."
It's only going to get worse. According to the Cinema Advertising Council, ads in theaters increased by 23% last year alone. The New York Times recently reported that Gillette aired its first in-theater ad, touting its new Pulsar toothbrush, convinced that a big-screen look at the toothbrush's new technology will "have amazing visual impact."
I can testify to the impact, though I'd call it more depressing than amazing. I saw the ad last week during an afternoon of theater ad watching. The Pulsar ad was just one of roughly two dozen ads, public-service spots and behind-the-scenes film and TV features that make up the 2wenty, a 20-minute package of ads that plays on 5,700 screens in Regal theaters around the country. Put together by National CineMedia, a joint venture between the Regal and AMC theater chains, the 2wenty represents, depending on your point of view, a new high or low in theater advertising.
Cliff Marks, National CineMedia's president of sales and chief marketing officer, says he isn't presenting commercials but "an entertaining content piece" in which nearly half the ads are created for or seen first in theaters. He's recruited four Big Media partners -- Universal Studios, Sony Pictures Entertainment, NBC and TBS -- that produce behind-the-scenes features for the package. He insists moviegoers have no problems with well-presented ads. "Our research shows that the overwhelming majority of people like the 2wenty," he says. "Most importantly, we end our show at the designated show time -- we're doing it on our time, not on your time."
No one will say how much theater owners are making from ads, but it seems clear that annual revenues are sizable -- CineMedia's media partners alone are paying millions for their chunk of the Regal package. If I viewed it simply as an investor, I'd be impressed, especially by the shrewd foresight of real estate magnate Phil Anschutz, who has emerged as America's largest theater owner, combining his Regal chain with United Artists and Edwards Theaters.
Buying into the business when many chains were in bankruptcy, the reclusive billionaire has poured roughly $70 million into equipping Regal theaters with new digital video technology. But that technology isn't being used to show "War of the Worlds" on a hi-def digital video system. Theater owners are content to wait for the studios to pony up most of the conversion costs for digital projection. Anschutz put all that money into the theaters largely to sell more ads. The $70-million investment, which includes satellite delivery capability, allows Regal, via CineMedia, to play a new package of advertising each month, with custom-crafted versions of the 2wenty to run in front of PG, PG-13 or R-rated movies.
My first look at the 2wenty came at the Grand Palace theater in Calabasas, a sleek replica of a 1940s movie house that has a six-screen multiplex. The package is a big step up from the hodgepodge of slides and spots airing in most theaters. There were even two clever ads: a Nike "Friday Night Lights"-style look at high school football and a making-of feature on "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," a Universal comedy starring Steve Carell. Instead of just showing tedious interviews with the filmmakers, the feature cannily sold Carell himself, showing clips of him in "Bruce Almighty," "The Office" and on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien."
