Regal Entertainment CEO Amy Miles became infamous yesterday for suggesting during a Cinemacon panel discussion that texting during a movie might be an okay thing, especially during films “that appeal to a younger demographic.”
Regal CEO Amy Miles
Panelists during yesterday’s Cinemacon discussion about satisfying “savvy” moviegoers, moderated by Anne Thompson (l.) Alamo Drafthouse CEO Tim League is second from left. Regal CEO Amy Miles is third from right.
A couple of hours later Miles showed up at the beginning of Sony’s product-reel show and riffed about how delightful it was that they had so many standard-issue tentpole attractions coming out in 2012 and blah blah.
Between her Sony exhilaration, her views about texting and her good-old-girl cracker accent, Miles become a poster lady for low-rent, anything-for-a-buck, to-hell with-refinement yeehaw attitudes among US. exhibitors. Miles’ “make the money at all costs” ethos combined with her lack of sympathy for decent movie-watching standards indicates that she‘s probably a Republican.
Miles said during a Cinemacon panel discussion about satisfying discerning moviegoers that Regal frowns upon cell phone use during films “but if we had a movie that appealed to a younger demographic” — like 21 Jump Street, she later said — “we could test some of these concepts…something you can offer in the theater that I would not find appealing but my 18-year-old son” might.
That statement didn’t go down well at all with Alamo Drafthouse CEO Tim League, who despises the idea of texting during films and totally forbids it in his theatres. “Over my dead body will I introduce texting into the movie theater,” he said yesterday. “I love the idea of playing around with a new concept, but [texting] is the scourge of our industry…it’s our job to understand that this is a sacred space and we have to teach manners.”
League said that it should be “magical” to come to the cinema. Miles replied that “one person’s opinion of magical isn’t the other’s,” and League replied, “But my opinion is correct.” He’s right, of course. People like Miles are the enemy.
