Slashdot Mirror
Movie Industry Blames Texting for Bad Box Office
cybercuzco writes "The movie industry is blaming poor sales of such movies as Gigli, The Hulk and Charlies Angels not on the fact that they were poor quality, but because people text message other people telling them that the movie stinks. Industry executives say that this undermines a carefully crafted marketing image. Expect texting to be banned by the MPAA in the near future."
This article made me laugh more then Mario Cantone on the Denis Leary
roast. Who thinks this stuff? Colin Quinn should get this writer on the
payroll for tough crowd.
"A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of." - Burt Bacharach
Word of Mouth Ruled Illegal - Film at 11
Governments are not necessary.
Where's the foot icon?
Coke retroactively blames the touch-tone phone for poor sales of the New Coke.
Hey, that's probably a lot easier than getting rid of bad movies. :)
However, I would imagine that hollywood is by and large safe because the majority of people do not have cell phones that support "text-messaging".
What we would really have to watch out for is if some technological renegade could come up with some way that "text messaging" messages could be encoded into normal speech, allowing people without even cell phones to "text mssage" each other warnings about bad movies simply by coming within a close physical radius. If that happens, Hollywood is doomed.
Although I am a bit perplexed. They suggest people did not go to see Gigli because these "text messages" warned them it was a bad movie. However, I do not have a "text message" capable cell-phone, yet I knew Gigli was a bad movie anyway, becuase all the media outlets I follow had been consistently running stories for two weeks before Gigli was released warning me that it was going to be a bad movie. Perhaps this "text messaging" of which they speak has somehow hijacked cnn.com and nyt.com, causing "text messages" warning of bad movies to masquerade as normal news? Wouldn't that be illegal? Hmm.
Clearly there is much to think about here.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Where is Jay Sherman when you need him.. *sigh*
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
Nah, people are just not doing what they are supposed to do. They listen to their friends instead of falling for the flashy commercial. I say we impose a MPAA tax on text messages to cover up the lost profits.
Either that, or outlaw friendship.
True ravers don't need drugs
I hope you know that by reading a book, and going outside, you may lose your posting privileges.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
More likely they'll pull a page from SCO and make anybody who actually wants to watch a movie sign a non-disclosure agreement before they can enter the theater....
People are already gagging as they leave the theater, after having paid $$ to watch the latest JLo POS.
The irony about all this is that their slogan on that stupid "Respect Copyrights" commercial is
"Movies. They're worth it."