New Facebook Tech Will Encourage People To Use Their Phones In Movie Theaters

Blumhouse is teaming up with Facebook parent company Meta to “augment and uplevel” the movie going experience. How? By encouraging people to interact with an AI chatbot while in a theater watching a movie on the big screen. Does this sound like a good idea? Nope! But that hasn’t stopped Hollywood or big tech before.

On April 9, as reported by Variety, Meta is launching its new “Movie Mate” technology during a special April 30 screening of Megan—the original film, not its forthcoming sequel—as part of horror movie studio Blumhouse’s “Halfway to Halloween Film Festival.” The new tech will let moviegoers use their mobile phones as a “second screen” while watching Megan in a theater. The idea is that people in the theater will be able to use their phone to chat with a Megan-themed AI chatbot, answer trivia questions, and read behind-the-scenes tidbits.

I don’t care how much of a boomer this makes me: don’t use your phone in a movie theater. If you are worried about an emergency, leave it on buzz and exit the theater before checking your device. Otherwise, mute that shit and enjoy two hours in a dark room separated from the nightmare that is the internet in 2025.

“The question we always ask ourselves is why can’t every day be Halloween? So Halfway to Halloween brings us one step closer, and I couldn’t be happier that this year we are going nationwide,” said Jason Blum, founder and CEO of Blumhouse, in a statement. “In that same spirit of trying new things, we’re excited to give Megan fans an all-new experience in theaters from the team at Meta.”

I do find it very funny that Meta and Blumhouse are pitching this tech as “new” despite second screen experiences being a thing that companies tried over a decade ago. Remember Xbox SmartGlass? That was an app you’d open on your tablet or phone and then use while playing games or watching movies on your Xbox One. It had some uses, but wasn’t really a thing anybody cared about. So Xbox killed it and moved on. Yet, here’s Meta bringing the concept back, while making it more annoying than before by cramming in AI and encouraging people to use their phones while in a movie theater.

I can only hope that, like most new ideas big tech has these days, this Movie Mate thing quietly fails and is never mentioned again. If not, then going to the movies is going to get a lot worse, and that would make me really sad.

Oh and speaking of Megan, the sequel looks bonkers. I hope when I watch it in a movie theater later this year I don’t have to deal with 20 random people on their phones the whole time.

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