There was a time when the '90s audiences used to find Ads playing in cinema halls enjoyable. The commercials used to be extremely few and sometimes unintentionally hilarious. The multiplex culture, especially the one promoted by the PVR chain, has flipped everything. The PVR screens are notorious for delayed screening of movies. At times, the Ads play for about 15-20 minutes. In cities like Mumbai, it is said to be worse.
Netizens and a small section of the cinema industry have been expressing their helplessness, urging the multiplexes to wake up before it is too late. "Twenty-five minutes of ads before the film is too many; it is hampering the in-cinema experience, and there is a sense of disengagement and fatigue before the movie starts. The commercial benefits of so many versus the damage it could do to the cinema-going habit are worth evaluating," producer Gaurav Verma. "It's like a streaming platform subjecting its paying subscribers to the tediousness of ads! It's not fair. We go to theatres to escape such experiences," wrote journalist Manoj Kumar R.
The second half of most movies easily bores the audience because they are too tired to watch it. "Even the duration of ads during the interval is overlong. It seems some films get affected by all this and hence the curse of the second half creeps in," wrote another user.
