Hudson Valley Theater Adding Extra Half Hour of Ads Before Movie

A Hudson Valley movie theater has announced that movies will now start up to a half-hour after the posted showtime because of increased advertisements.

When I was growing up, stories about the future always predicted that we would be bombarded with advertisements everywhere we looked. We're actually living in that reality right now. Whether it's a sports drink ad blaring through the gas pump, a sneaker logo superimposed on the pitcher's mound during a game or the friendly advertisement interrupting this paragraph...

Everywhere you look, someone is trying to sell you something. Even after shelling out hundreds of dollars for a new television, you're stuck having to see sneaky little advertisements in the on-screen guide, and we've all just gotten used to it.

Now, a Hudson Valley movie theater is coming clean about its plan to shove even more advertisements in front of its captive audiences by padding the start times of films by half an hour.

Hudson Valley Movie Theater Adding Half Hour of Commercials

Starting on July 8, all AMC movie theaters, including the Crystal Run 16 in Middletown, will reverse their long-standing policy against pre-movie advertisements and begin a new partnership with National CineMedia.  According to The Independent, the company already supplies Regal and Cinemark with commercials that run before feature films at all of their theaters.

A disclaimer on the AMC website now states that the advertised showtimes of their films include approximately 25-30 minutes of "preshow material". This means that your 8:00 film won't actually begin until at least 8:25.

The good news is that AMC theaters offer reserved seating, so you don't have to get there early and sit through a bunch of sad commercials, trailers and Nicole Kidman telling you how magical movies are before the show starts.