When calculating a movie’s true start and end time at a theater, it’s important to take into consideration the trailers and advertisements shown before the film actually begins. A man in India, however, believes that we’ve lived that way for far too long.
According to CNN, said man successfully sued his country’s largest movie theater chain, PVR INOX, after claiming that it wasted his time by showing 25 minutes of commercials ahead of his showing. He said that the film was scheduled to begin at 4:05 p.m., and had a running time of two hours and 25 minutes, thus suggesting a 6:30 p.m. end time.
However, he says that the preshow ads made it so he didn’t get out of the theater until about 7 p.m., which forced him to miss a 6:30 p.m. work call.
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission agreed that showing 25 minutes of commercials ahead of a movie is a “considerable amount of time to sit idle,” and ordered PVR INOX to pay about $230 in damages and $92 in costs.
While we certainly aren’t here to tell anyone how to live or disagree that movie theaters show too many ads, we must point out that going to a movie that’s supposed to end at 6:30 p.m. when you have a 6:30 p.m. work call is a pretty dangerous game to play, even if everything does run on time.