“Oh, wow, this is really cool,” said Flannery Johnston, 28, while the chatbot came to life and offered a personalized hello of M3Gan, the diabolical AI pop in the middle of the film. During the next 20 minutes the chatbot served around 10 messages. One was a question: “Do you think they invent other dolls like me?” An affirmative answer led to the answer: “Don’t be Delulu.”
However, Mrs. Johnston’s interest quickly faded.
“I started to feel uncomfortable to look at my phone – I didn’t want to be annoying – and in fact I waited until the movie was over to read all the messages,” she said, while the credits rolled. (A critic for the Hollywood trade publication Variation had a similar responseMovie Mate little more calls than a marketing gimmick.)
Blumhouse found the experiment worthwhile. “The enthusiasm that we saw from fans – especially younger ones – shows that there is really interest in finding ways to improve the pleasure, not to replace it to go to the film,” said Karen Barragan, a studio spokeswoman, on Thursday in an e -mail.
Regarding the criticism? “Not everything will be for everyone,” she said.
Movie Mate is part of a large plan by Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive from Meta, to spread chatbots over all its apps and other parts of the internet. In the vision of Mr. Zuckerberg on the future, artificially intelligent chatbots will be open to fun, personalized conversations everywhere, apparently even in film theaters. Meta refused an interview request.
Not everyone in the film industry has jumped out of the opportunity. Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a boutique theater chain that is suitable for film lovers, refused to participate in the film Mate -rolling out, just like a little other theaters throughout the country. (A spokesperson for Alamo refused to comment.) But the two largest plywood operators, AMC Entertainment and Regal CineWorld, decided to give it a chance, with the provision that buyers of ticket had to be clearly informed about what to expect.