I don’t think anyone in this thread is making the case that you should be quiet when the lights are still full on.
“Mood” lighting, yes, quiet please. The light is on so people can find a seat. Not so you can talk.
I went to the movies last night and that’s exactly how it was. The lights were dimmed during the trailers but not off like when the movie came on. With only 6 people in a large theater nothing else discussed here was a factor.
Where do they do that? Around here, the lights dim for the ads and the theater intro/attempt to make you hungry with giant popcorn kernels and coke pouring over ice, but the theater is dark by time the previews start up.
Every theater I go to. Lights up for the ads and whatever type of non-movie commercial they are running. Lights dim for advertisements of movies i.e. trailers. Lights out for the movie.
At my local cinema, it’s full lights if nothing’s started yet, soft lights for the commercials, dim lights for the trailers, and only emergency lights for the feature. The lighting during the trailers is dim enough that the light from a mobile phone is a distraction. I also enjoy the trailers and look forward to seeing them. Somebody sending out a quick text and turning their phone on silent at the start of the trailers? No big deal. Someone watching a sports game or playing a video game on their phone because they’re not interested in the trailers? That bright square of light in my peripheral view is quite noticeable and unwelcome.
I don’t think “Being quiet for a few minutes while someone is watching something they’re interested in” meets that standard but you go ahead and do you.
Edit: Agreeing with others, every time I see a film it’s lights on for the early ads, entertainment news, movie trivia and other nonsense, then the lights go off, you get the “Turn your phone off” message and the previews start. I’ve never been in a theater where the lights were on for the actual previews but I can’t say no one does it that way.
At my cinema, (in the UK) the “turn your phone off” message comes at the end of the trailers, just before one final ad which is for a subsription card to the cinema chain itself, then the film starts. Which (apart from the final ad) is as it should be imo.
Agreeing with others that previews are ads, not part of the movie. To me it is absurd to argue otherwise.
Out of consideration for the relatively few who love those commercials the rest of us should be fairly quiet but those few demanding that we all behave with the exact same degree of quietude and attention to these ads as when the movie is playing is an ask beyond reasonable consideration levels. Talking on the phone? No. Whispering a bit very quietly about the previews and coming in during them? Yes. Reading an email with phone light dim and held low instead of watching the ad? I wouldn’t but I would not object to someone else who did.
So somewhere between 2 and 3. 1 is a sure no.
Uhh… there are tons of folks who pay for Hulu’s ad tier (it’s Hulu’s big money maker, actually). Plenty ‘stand for this’.