Warner didn’t make her wait that long, she did that all on her own. If I wait outside McDonalds long enough, do I deserve a hamburger? People will queue for days to spend $500 and commit to a 2-year contract for a bleeding phone. People are idiots, with a weird penchant for standing in line. I can see how their expectations might inflate as time passes, but expectations aren’t deserts.
Again, I refer to my rule of life stated above. Presumably all these other free tickets actually said what they were for. I simply can’t add the information in the OP up to a reasonable conclusion that they were getting a whole free movie.
Did the OP even ask them, though? Maybe phone up beforehand to see what the story is? I’d resent three hours of daily commuting if I were getting paid triple what I am, so there’s no way I’d go that far with no idea of what I was doing it for. Nor, for that matter, would I have done it even had I been guaranteed a free movie. The best case scenario was that the OP would get to watch a glorified advert slightly before everyone else (woo!) and save maybe $10 on a movie. Valuing your time at a maximum of $2 per hour sounds like a recipe for disappointment to me.
I stood in line for hours to post to this thread and all I got was this lame diatribe? From now on, I’m posting all my rants in GQ and the moderators can move them. See if you get my business any more, BBQ Pit!
Why don’t you try something else first, like sending a nasty letter to whomever provided the tickets or set up the show. It’s pretty obnoxious to make people wait for a 6 minute trailer, and I certainly would have expected an actual movie.
I think a decent analogy would be if every fast food place in town gave you a mystery coupon and every time you tried to claim one, you got an extra large sized combo meal. You’d kind of take for granted that the mystery ticket was no longer a mystery and probably wouldn’t be too happy when you traded one in and only got a small cup of water.
Now, I’m not saying that WB owes the OP a movie or anything at all for that matter. They didn’t break any laws or explicitly promise anything they didn’t deliver. That doesn’t mean that they’re not guilty of piss poor customer service, though.
Well yeah, but only if you’re not actually reading her posts:
While I disagree that Equipoise’s stand is correct, I don’t see how she’s hurting either the cinema or the punters. She goes to matinees, (which I assume are generally half empty), pays full price for a ticket, (albeit one she won’t use) and just goes in the wrong door. The cinema still gets their cut, the public still have plenty of seats, and the only ones who are hurt are WB and the filmmakers.
So where is this God-given right to watch a movie that someone else has made with his money on your terms. If you don’t like the terms the studio has set, you’re free not to watch the movie. There’s no way to justify stealing just because you don’t like the deal. Hollywood doesn’t owe you entertainment.
If you don’t like ads why not just come in later than the advertised time? I’ve never known a cinema that won’t tell you what time the actual film starts and let you continue to buy tickets up to that time; although it may be different over the pond. Whenever I go to the cinema I always add 15 mins to the scheduled time, and get there just as the trailers are starting.
Maybe WB didn’t even do anything at all. Lots of promotions in various industries are farmed out to third parties, with people who are ad agency types.
Equipoise I totally agree with your reaction. You certainly seem to attend more movies and special events in theatres than the average bear. Based on your previous experiences your assumptions seem like they should have been very well founded, and indeed I would have also assumed the same.
As far as your reaction, I’d say stick to your guns. I’d also write in as has been mentioned by others in this thread. I doubt that WB will take notice of your complaint as one person’s money does not matter overly much to them, but it couldn’t hurt, right? It isn’t like they are going to start tracking your movie attendance because of it.
Wait a minute! Someone cares if the movie you watch isn’t the one you bought the ticket for? Hell, I thought that was just to keep track of how many seats were available in the theater. I’ve changed my mind and gone to a movie other than the one for which a ticket was purchased, does this make me a common thief? Gadzooks!
Seriously? This is something only a gutter dwelling thief out to steal my popcorn would do? The theater is still getting money, they just believe one movie drew two more people than it did, so it’s not stealing is it? As long as the OP isn’t taking two seats in a crowded show that screws two people who bought a ticket, who freakin’ cares?
I freely admit that I know nothing about how movie theaters operate. Perhaps this will bring Hollywood to its knees, or at least cause the local movie showing place to crumble to dust, but it seems pretty harmless to me.
I have a friend who aways says “I’ll go and see Star Trek XXII because we need to support science fiction/fantasy films.” Um, why? Yes, back in the 1970’s when we were kids and all you had was Logan’s Run and Space 1999 it was nessesary to support science-fiction/fantasy films. But now the most money-making movies are Sci-Fi/Fantasy and we have movies like Van Helsing, being made. it’s time for a new paradigm.
Maybe it isn’t her job to track down who did the advertising, and she can just write to WB. I’m pretty certain it won’t have any effect, but maybe, just maybe someone will take notice, and either change their advertising practices or not hire out to the company that did.
The theater pays the producer royalties for a particular movie based on tickets sold. (Generally the royalties are higher at first and drop off. The longer the theatre can show a movie, the more marginally profitable it gets for the theatre, but the less marginally profitable it gets for the producer. Early in the run, the theatre relies entirely on concessions for profit.) The producer pays revenue-sharing parties based on the income from a particular movie.
