As has been noted earlier, it’s possible the woman is expecting an important call, and so answers her phone. Or she has a voice-mail option on her cell phone, which once again would incur charges per minute whether she answered the phone or not.
So, 20 calls an hour … let’s say each call is one minute in length. (Most are probably shorter, but many cell-phone companies bill in one-minute increments.) So that’s 480 calls a day. The movie’s been out, what, five days now? That’s 2,400 calls. At a minute each.
Unless she’s got one of those mega-minute plans on her cell phone contract, she’s gonna incur some serious usage fees.
All because an idiot screenwriter and/or producer didn’t care enough to check the number they used in the movie.
As has been noted earlier, it’s possible the woman is expecting an important call, and so answers her phone. Or she has a voice-mail option on her cell phone, which once again would incur charges per minute whether she answered the phone or not.
So, 20 calls an hour … let’s say each call is one minute in length. (Most are probably shorter, but many cell-phone companies bill in one-minute increments.) So that’s 480 calls a day. The movie’s been out, what, five days now? That’s 2,400 calls. At a minute each.
Unless she’s got one of those mega-minute plans on her cell phone contract, she’s gonna incur some serious usage fees.
All because an idiot screenwriter and/or producer didn’t care enough to check the number they used in the movie.
But it’s ok even if it DOES happen to me. Not so ok that I’d ask for it, but not something to get all upset about.
I think the problem is that some of us have a different idea of what “no big deal” means. I don’t mean that it’s not a problem at all, or nothing to be concerned about. I mean that it’s a fairly minor inconvenience in the big picture. For some people (doctors, etc) it could be more serious, but in the story above, and for me, and most others, it’s no big deal.
Ooner, I regret calling you a hypocrite, especially in light of the fact that we may have conflicting idea of what “no big deal” is.
I guess the point was that if it were not a big deal to you, then you wouldn’t mind being in the same position as the lady. If you do mind, then it would be a big deal. Relatively speaking, of course.
I don’t think the fact that she isn’t a doctor makes the situation any better. I don’t see how usually a non-555 number would add anything to the movie and even if it did somehow improve the movie, it shouldn’t have been used without the woman’s permission.
It seems like she has the option of not changing her number and having to deal with annoying calls for who knows how long (it would probably slow down after a bit but still). Or she can have her number changed and have to spend time informing all of her friends/families/colleagues of the change. If the phone company were to put some message that would direct people calling the original number to her new number she would probably still get some idiots who would enjoy calling the new number.
I’m really, really hoping that Universal Studios executives and their spokespeople aren’t as stupid as the quote in this article makes them seem:
“A Universal spokeswoman told Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News Wednesday that the reason the phone number was used in “Bruce Almighty,” was because the prefix doesn’t exist in Buffalo, N.Y., where the movie is set.”
Well, that’s all righty, then! Tell you what, Universal Studios: You don’t release the movie anywhere except Buffalo, N.Y., and I’ll agree that your logic makes sense. Otherwise, you’re seriously lowering the IQ of the movie industry. And that’s saying something.
I’d have to agree and disagree here. I’d go whacko if I were getting 20 calls per hour, every hour. I don’t answer my phone after 9pm…UNLESS they call right back - that’s my “emergency code” and the people that would call me know that.
And her situation may be such that she CANNOT turn the phone off - they didn’t say. No, she’s not a doc, but she may need the phone on for other reasons. And 20 calls EVERY HOUR would mean that she’s not getting much sleep, either.
Incidentally, the phone company charges you (last I checked, where I am anyway, it’s over $60) to get your phone number changed. And why should those poor people have to change their numbers just because some Jerk-Off didn’t want to use the “standard” practises?
And, as others have pointed out, if it’s also a work number and it’s on your business cards, or if it’s on your checks, it’s not exactly just a phone call and boom the number’s changed, no big.
Plus the phone company doesn’t just change it on your say-so: you need to prove you’re who you say you are AND you need to prove you have the “authority” to request a new phone number…which can take up to a week to get assigned to you.
The entrance to where you go for the NBC studio tour doubles as an outdoor set for “Days of Our Lives” tapings. Hence the payphone that’s on the set is a real payphone, for use by people visiting the studio.
On the tour, they mention that they had to change the number on the payphone and put black tape over the new number during tapings, because some crazy viewer managed to work out the number and kept calling it and telling whoever answered that they had to tell Marlena that Victor was after her.
I don’t know if the story’s true, but at least Snopes hasn’t discredited it.
Am I the only one who thinks this whole story is a hoax made up by the moviepeople to get some free publicity for the movie?
No real women in this situation would patiently sit around and wait for the number of calls to get into the double digits.
And no woman in these circumstances would call the press. She would just file a lawsuit and notify the press only if and when that would be in her financial interest. As nothing about that was mentioned, I say “hoax”.
At least three different people/organizations (including a radio station) have been interviewed about this. The individuals might be fake, I guess, but it would be pretty simple to verify if the number in question belongs to a radio station in Colorado. Besides, the studio would have to be beyond brain-dead to come up with a publicity stunt that makes them look … well, this brain-dead.
And how on earth do you know what a woman would do in this situation? Do all women react to situations in exactly the same manner?
After 9pm is a time when i’ll always answer the phone, because it’s one time of the day when i can be almost certain that the person on the other end isn’t a telemarketer.
And if it is, they are breaking the law.
So if my phone rings after 9 at night, it’s most likely a friend calling for a chat. Of course, my friends all know that i’m never in bed before midnight, and that i am happy to take calls late at night.
Sauron, upon Googling some, I’ve changed my opinion from “hoax” to “publicity stunt”.
Did you notice that all newssources used the exact same worded pressrelease, alledgedly from a local Florida newspaper, The St. Petersburg Times?
How did the story get in just one days from messageboard to Petersburg-times? And from there in one day more to all-over-Internet? I smell some professional spindoctoring behind that…
Actually, not “at least three” but only two people were interviewed. One ramained anonymous.
And why would this be a braindead stunt? It has yet generated huge amounts of free publicity. The story is well constructed
-While passing it on, the name of the movie is an essential part that cannot be left out (the story is thus protected from degenerating into “there was this movie and they showed a telephonenumber in it”.
-The story makes you want to go see the movie (you could think of publicitystunts that acted as spoilers, but this isn’t one of them)
-The story has already become inverifiable. Dawn Jenkins alledgedly has gone into “no comment mode”. The radiostation also gets free publicity out of it and thus has nothing to gain by demanding some sobering follow-up or bare-factfinding to this story.
So, not braindead at all. Very clever, actually.
Would you patiently pick up your cellphone for the 60-th time or would you by theb have disconnected your phone?
Stop and think about what you’re saying, Maastricht. Universal Studios is going to concoct a publicity stunt that, at best, makes them look like doofuses for not checking the number out in the first place, and, at worst, paints them as uncaring idiots by defending the practice in the first place? How is this going to make anyone go see the film?
Couple of points: The St. Petersburg Times is a well-respected newspaper. And your assertion that it’s the only news organ covering the story is false – as noted above, the Rocky Mountain News has also reported on it. Had the phone calls been affecting people in a large population center, such as L.A. or New York, we would’ve heard about this even sooner than we did.
And I’m assuming you’re not familiar with the workings of the Internet, if you’re questioning the speed with which interesting stories about movies ranked number one at the box office can be disseminated.
Finally, you need to learn the difference in a news story between “interviewed” and “quoted.” Just because two people are quoted in the story, doesn’t mean three people weren’t interviewed. In fact, the names of three people are mentioned in the story I linked above: Dawn Jenkins, who didn’t want to be quoted until she had talked to a lawyer; the Rev. Bruce MacInnes; and Ron Nickel, senior vice president of the Radio Colorado Network. It would be hard to name three people in the story (and inform readers of what they’re planning to do) if someone from the newspaper didn’t interview them. Unless they’re Jayson Blair, of course.
Why they would want to drum up free publicity, even for a JC movie? You can answer that one yourself, no?
Besides, this is just the kind of goofball story that fits this kind of comedy.
A movie like LOTR, f.i. would need another kind of story. A funny story about LOTR (like “if you watch closely, you see Frodo passing an discarded soda-can when entering Llothorien” ) would deminish sales. Therefore, you never read about such stories.
But I disagree on two points:
One_ news passed on through the internet usually comes in many forms, all differently worded. This story is so exactly similarly worded in all sources (but the Rocky Mountainsnews you’re right about that one), that it seems more like it has beendistributed than travelled.
Two Since when do people choose to see movies based on the ethical conduct (or doofususness or lack thereof) of the moviecompany? How many people even know which company produced what movie? They know the actor, maybe the director, and that’s it.
If the moviecompany had to pay three persons to get interviewed for it (they would not have to be paid much, as they are not breaking any laws, are they?)…to get many million dollars worth of free publicity out of it… not a difficult choice.