AMC Quickly Backtracks on Ill-Advised Texting Plan

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." (More AMC stories.)