An Open Letter to Jonathan Glickman, President of MGM Studios (and other Film Producers)

Dear Mr Glickman.

When I go to the cinema, I go to see one of your (or your rivals’) films and I am prepared to sit through a number of new and fresh trailers that tell me what new films I might choose to go and see in the future. That’s all well and good. If I like the film you have produced, then I may well buy it on Blu-Ray DVD later.

But the watching of a film in the privacy of my own home should be a different experience to the movie theatre/cinema. I usually have a limited amount of time to see the film. Perhaps a couple of hours before bed, or before I go pick up the kids from school, or maybe I stretch the limited tolerance and impatience of the people I am watching the film with before they get fidgety and want to see something else or go off and do something else.

Consequently, when I put the DVD in the player and close the drawer, I want to see the film start within a minute or two. Alas no. After I have chosen the language, the sound set-up and said whether I want the “yak track” on, we are treated to ten or more minutes or so of compulsory trailers. You try to skip them, but it’s not allowed. Your DVD has told my player that it is not possible to race through fast forward to the movie. I must watch what it is you have dictated I must watch. The only way I can stop this torture is to stop watching the film altogether, or going up the road to the 24-7 to get some beers in. If I am seeing the DVD a year or more after its release then the trailers are out of date. So why why why must I be subjected to having to watch the trailers? Only a slave cannot withdraw labour, and only an automaton cannot switch off or skip on to the main event. It’s not like I haven’t paid for the DVD. This is no pirated product- it’s something I have paid hard-earned cash for- and I have had the element of choice- whether to watch the trailers or not) taken away from me. That is wrong and I’d even go as far as saying that you have infringed my human rights. I do not want to see the trailers, but in order to see the film, you have decided and dictated that I must. Do you ever sit down with your wife and family and watch a DVD? Clearly not, or you would enable us all to be able to skip the trailers! Please think again and make a change in MGM movie released on DVD. Break the mould and gain the admiration of us all!

Finally, please can you stop the blindingly obvious and painfully trite product placement that occurs in your movies? I know you have to finance movies and have some product placement, but can you have it at the start or the end of the movie and not littered all the way through? Someone looks on a lap-top for a Police Crime database.. ooh look a lingering shot of the apple symbol on the rear of the screen. Into a bar.. ooh look, everyone has Budweisers. A car parking lot- ooh look, most of the cars are GM cars. Please try to be more subtle in your product placement, or restrict them to the borders of the movie.

Thank you for reading this And I hope I have persuaded you to change!