April 14--The most interesting and suspenseful story playing out at your local cineplex IS your local cineplex and what is to become of it.
This isn't a new plot line, this issue of whether theaters are going to become more like our living rooms or our living rooms are going to become more like theaters.
But the outcome is less certain than in most remakes, reboots or sequels, and ticket-buyers are hardly the only ones in the dark as they watch.
Recent developments, reflective of both the industry's identity crisis and the challenges exacerbating them, include a major theater chain CEO saying he's open to allowing audience members to text during screenings and the guy who helped upend the music industry now trying to bring first-run films into people's homes on the same date as their theatrical debuts.
We're talking about a century-old business that thus far has survived such formidable threats as the advent of color television, video recorders, big flat screens, DVDs, pay-cable and on-demand viewing, improved home sound systems and literally dozens of Steven Seagal movies.
Now if you're of a certain age and disposition, maybe the prospect of theatergoers whipping out their phones and texting with impunity during a film sends a message that maybe your cineplex days are near an end.
There aren't enough frowny face emojis to convey what you're feeling.
"You can't tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone. That's not how they live their life," AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron told Variety. "At the same time, though, we're going to have to figure out a way to do it that doesn't disturb today's audiences."
Aron isn't sure if that means sections of theaters relegated for those who can't focus on just one screen or whole theaters at certain showings or what.
But AMC, the United States' No. 2 theater chain, is awaiting approval of a merger with Carmike, which is No. 4, to become the nation's No. 1 exhibitor. If it moves in this direction, others are likely to follow as it addresses how different demographic groups consume entertainment in their own ways.
That extends to The Screening Room, with which AMC is reported to have signed a letter of intent to partner and about which Aron doesn't want to speak.
It's the brainchild of Sean Parker, whose Napster digital music sharing service was at the front end of tremendous upheaval of the movie business. Movie fans unfamiliar with Napster might know Parker as the person played by Justin Timberlake in the Facebook movie "The Social Network."
