With everyone talking about a box office slump (which may or may not exist), you’d think movie theaters and movie studios would be looking for ways to make their customer’s moviegoing experience better. Instead, they’re doing their best to make it more annoying than ever.

When I saw this over at The Movie Blog I almost fell out of my cubicle. According to Variety, National CineMedia has just cut deals with 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Sony to increase the amount of advertising seen on U.S. movie screens. People are avoiding theaters because they can’t stand all the advertising, so in response greedy fat cats have decided to load us down with MORE? This is the kind of logic that keeps Uwe Boll employed.

The Movie Blog adds, “National CineMedia is a joint venture that will provide movie theaters with 20 minutes of previews from the three studios as well as commercial advertising before the feature begins, Variety reported Wednesday. With a disappointing summer box office and flat ticket and concessions sales, studios are seeing the ad concept as a fast path to increased revenue.” It’s also a quick freakin path to driving even MORE people out of the theater. How about thinking of the future instead of just squeezing as much money out of people as you possibly can while you can? My god, the insanity of this decision is just mind boggling. Look what we’re in for here. Twenty minutes of ads before the movie AS WELL as commercial advertising before the movie. You could be looking at a good thirty minutes to an hour worth of ads being shoved in front of your eyes. Mind boggling stupidity, completely mind boggling.

Luckily, at least someone has their head screwed on straight. Theater distributors are asking the obvious question: Um won’t this piss off our audiences? This has to stop.