We need to reshape our product in some concrete ways so that millennials go to movie theaters with the same degree of intensity as baby boomers went to movie theaters throughout their lives. "When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone, don't ruin the movie, they hear please cut off your left arm above the elbow," said Aron in an interview with Variety published online Wednesday. "You can’t tell a 22-year-old to turn off their cellphone.
– Well, that didn't take long: Less than two days after AMC's CEO gave an interview in which he suggested the theater chain might allow texting in its theaters, he's put out a statement backtracking. "NO TEXTING AT AMC. Won't happen. You spoke. We listened. Quickly, that idea has been sent to the cutting room floor," reads a tweet Friday accompanying the statement. In the statement, CEO Adam Aron acknowledges the social media uproar that followed the texting news (USA Today has rounded up sample tweets from people who swore never to visit an AMC theater again) and says that the chain will not allow texting any time in the "foreseeable future." One analyst tells CBS that Aron's actual idea might not have been as irksome as it sounded: "One of the things keeping millennials away from the movies is that they need to be on their phones all the time. What [Adam Aron] wants to do is segregate different groups so that people don't want to be on their phones, i.e., older demographic groups, and those who do could be in different [auditoriums]." And Aron tried to make that clear on Twitter Thursday, tweeting that AMC might simply do a test run on "VERY FEW screens" and would make sure it was done "in a way we'd be TOTALLY confident ALL our guests will fully enjoy movie going experience." But that wasn't enough, garnering responses like, "No! Not even one! What a stupid idea."