Sometimes disruptions in movie theaters are spontaneous, like the current frenzy among audiences watching A Minecraft Movie. Other times, they’re planned, as with the upcoming “second screen” experience that Blumhouse crafted with Meta’s help for a special “Halfway to Halloween” screening of M3GAN. In the second example, at least, fans of the communal movie-going ritual that traditionally emphasizes leaving the world behind to focus on the big screen have a major movie chain in their corner.
The M3GAN gimmick, which encourages audience members to use their phones to interact with the movie as it’s playing, goes in direct opposition to the Alamo Drafthouse’s long-standing “no phones” rule. In a news report from Variety, the company will not be allowing access to the “Movie Mate” M3GAN chatbot during screenings. If you try to light up your phone for pop-up trivia mid-screening, you’re risking being booted from the theater.
So if you’re excited to revisit M3GAN on the big screen—Blumhouse’s “Halfway to Halloween” revival series also includes Annabelle and Ma, neither of which come with a chatbot add-on—but you don’t want to be interrupted by your neighbor’s flashing phone screen, Alamo Drafthouse seems the best bet. Truly, it’s getting dire out there with the etiquette of the movie theater experience getting ripped apart in order to potentially keep theaters going. I’m not sure if it would help if its turns people off from going unless now screenings add specific ones for “second screen” users alongside ones that strongly discourage phone use or talking.
The Alamo Drafthouse already holds “rowdy” screenings for titles that elicit communal crowd reactions. But when it comes to Meta trying to follow users with work arounds to advertise to them while in the movies, we’re happy to see the steadfast rejection.
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