Regal Theaters Aren't Dealing Well with Problems about "Knowing" & "Duplicity"!

With two high profile movies launching with well-known stars dropping this weekend, one would think that theaters would be packed and that theaters would be on top of any potential problems that they might be experiencing– but when it comes to Regal Entertainment Group theaters, I guess they don’t know what to do when a serious problem does develop.
The SO (significant other) and I decided to see KNOWING — after much debate about times, theater locations and other movie options– at the Regal Theater nearest us. It wasn’t ideal: this theater doesn’t have stadium seating, the seats aren’t all that comfortable and this is a small theater complex. However it was the one running the movie at the most opportune time so off we went.

Dropping him off with my REG entertainment card (got a free small coke out of it), we went in and found 2 ok seats at this about 2/3 full large theater filled with people with popcorn, candy and drinks. We waited through all pre-show stuff and then the trailers/previews began. The one for CRANK: High Voltage came on and the film was really fuzzy and out of focus. I asked the SO to go tell the management that the film was whacked and please check. He came back pretty quickly and they were working on it.
The next trailer cleaned up a bit but the letters and titles were still out of sync which was pretty odd. After waiting– and wading- through most of the trailers, the lights go up and an employee of the theater says they are moving us to theater 4 (we were in theater 2) to see the movie and they would switch it over there.
Here’s where the problems begin.
Theater 4 is 1/2 the size of Theater 2– and theater 2 was 2/3 full — meaning that some people had lousy seats and it was packed
The screen fired up and it was pre-movie stuff and trailers all over again. Couldn’t they have skipped that part?
It gets worse!! The manager comes in and the theater is fully lit (again) and says that they can’t switch the film over to Theater 4!. They have a tech person coming in — but would be at least 2 hours before KNOWING would be seen. ( hmmm, they don’t have another copy?).
The manager was offering a pass to each person for them to return to see the movie. Someone asked about refunds, and the manager said he would speak to them after they cleared the theater. Someone else asked about seeing other movies and the manager said that Duplicity with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen had just started and we could go see that.

I asked how full the theater was and he said about half full. We had a choice: get a free pass or go see Duplicity. We opted for Duplicity and that was a mistake. We got into the theater and it was 2/3 full — not the half full and there were very few decent seats left that were not just single seats. We wound up on the side down at the front and it was really not an optimum experience for a movie I hadn’t signed up to see.
What irks me most is the the manager should have offered 2 passes for each person (not one per person) to account for the drinks & snacks we had purchased that would have gone soggy or diluted during the wait. Who wants to eat popcorn 2 hours later or a watered down coke (let’s not talk about ice cream, nachos or hot dogs). He was really short-changing the people who paid good money to see Knowing with Nicholas Cage and offering less than stellar options and not a full refund of the money we had spent for the tickets and food we had purchased. Eating theater popcorn without the movie doesn’t equal a good value in my mind and he could have offered to give us a free “something” in return for that.
It was overall a disappointing experience and I hope Regal Entertainment Group sees this. ( They will get a phone call tomorrow with a complaint). This shows me that Regal Theaters– or at least this theater — where the seats were 8 bucks for a matinee — didn’t particularly care about the customers. There was no incentive. With only one movie offered as a substitute (and Slumdog Millionaire was playing at the same theater along with several others) , that doesn’t seem like a fair way to deal with over 75 disappointed customers.
Read on for DUPLICITY review and trailers

Knowing Trailer with Nicholas Cage— wish I had gotten this far into the movie to be able to tell you about it but alas.. we never even got to the title credits!!

Duplicity starring Clive Owen & Julia Roberts is here. I think the movie is good (not great). The best scene is about the “black thong” . That section is priceless and so very well done. Wouldn’t say the ending was great– because they closed it out too fast and they didn’t give you any basis for the people involved in the resolution.

What you choose to see is of course your choice. I would personally wait to see Duplicity on DVD. Hopefully I will see Knowing in the theater but there’s no guarantee. Around me, it’s pretty much at Regal Theaters — unless I want to pay as much for parking as I do to get into the theater to see the movie.
Stevie Wilson