Odeon trialling ‘phoneless cinema screenings’

Checking your phone during a visit to the cinema just isn’t okay (Odeon)

Being immersed in a film at the cinema is under threat from small rectangles of bright light appearing a few rows in front as someone decides to check their phone halfway through.

Apparently, that scenario is getting so common that cinema chain Odeon is experimenting with ‘phoneless cinema screenings’.

The company has installed 60 lockers at a Greenwich cinema in London so film fans have somewhere to store their phones and avoid checking them during the screening. The lockers also charge the phones so they have a full battery waiting for them after the lights come up.

Is asking fans to lock their phones away overkill? Not according to Odeon.

‘It’s not just one casual glance as the trailers play, as a third of cinemagoers admitted to checking their phone up to nine times during a film,’ the company said in a press release.

‘With the average film lasting 120 minutes, that means we’re guilty of checking our phone every 13 minutes!’

Odeon Greenwich now has lockers for people to leave their phones in (Odeon)

The lockers are free to use and have arrived just in time for the new Star Wars movie – which has the potential to break records for cinema attendance.

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Odeon trialling ‘phoneless cinema screenings’