Meta doesn’t want you to turn off your phone in the cinema

Movie theaters are still failing to win back the viewers they lost during the Covid pandemic. Especially not those who had already decided to dedicate their free time to watching movies on streaming platforms. Since then, those same theaters have sought all kinds of methods to bring the faithful back to the ceremony of watching a film in a dark theater. Increasingly spacious seats, premium experiences, luxurious food, and even 4D, where the chairs move and if you’re watching, for example, Twisters, you might leave the theater with your hair disheveled. One of the reasons some believe the younger generations aren’t going to the movies anymore is that they (theoretically) have to stop using their most precious appendage to do so: their cell phones.

Surely that’s why, in the world of big technology and social engineering companies, solutions are beginning to be sought that allow for combining the experience of the seventh art with that of consulting the screen of the device in question. The first to take up this challenge was Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who had already conducted some (unsuccessful) tests on this subject but now believes he has the holy grail in his hands: the chatbot Movie Mate, which encourages viewers to use their cell phones while watching the film, and does so live... or at least that’s the intention.

As revealed by The New York Times last month, during a screening of the film M3GAN 2.0, attendees at an AMC theater in Los Angeles were encouraged to use their cell phones to participate in an interactive experiment. According to Meta’s instructions, the film’s protagonist would send messages to their device and they could even chat with her. “This is going to sound weird, but please take out and turn on your phones,” a voice informed the audience before the film began.

A Variety magazine journalist who attended the test commented after the event that it turned out to be “an epic failure.” The chatbot wasn’t synchronized with the film, there was no way to interact with it, and it was difficult to manage the phone and the viewing process, which caused chaos that wouldn’t appear to be the organizers’ intended objective.

For Enrique Costa, one of the most iconic independent film distributors in Spain and founder of Elastica Films, the idea is annoying. “If they invite you to use your phone during the film and it doesn’t capture your attention… could it be that you’re watching a crappy movie? If they have to ask you multiple-choice questions during the screening or you can interact with the rest of the audience, aren’t we giving wings to those who were irritating people in the cinema in the 1980s by shouting at each other while commenting on the film?” he asks.

For his part, Eduardo Escudero, business director of A Contracorriente Films, believes that “this should be considered nothing more than an experiment that is incompatible with what makes the movie theater experience unique and different, which has to do not only with the quality of the image, the sound, or the seats, but also with the attention it requires compared to the distractions you have when watching movies at home. Extending its use beyond specific actions seems complex.”

We don’t know if Meta is truly planning to expand Movie Mate’s presence or if it was simply a test to see how far viewers are willing to go: whether the bot’s lure can provide anything more than a joke from a moviegoer fed up with being used as a guinea pig, or if it will truly become a useful tool to get us back to the theaters. But for now, don’t forget to turn off your phone before the screening starts.

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