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Well it was sell outs by me. The weather was bad here in the Ny area and was packing them in.
How has everyone did with this?

A lot of 14-16 year olds have been attempting to see this movie without the required parent or guardian. We've turned away a several cars each night. Does anyone else have problems with under 17 year old kids attempting to buy tickets for R-rated movies?

Rick Cohen
Transit Drive-in
Lockport, New York

OMG. The largest share of people ho want to see an r rated film, especially in smaller markets, are underage. At least they stopped making so many movies that were targeted at 15-14-16 and they were straight R. My philosphy, not sared by NATO, or most of my fellow theatre owners... is that depending on the film and the appearance of the kids we nearly ignore the rating. Go ahead: shoot me. A film such as Grindhouse we allowed without carding anyone who LOOKS old enough. We take it film by film. We do not take a generic approac and card everyone, etc.

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Michael Hurley
Impresario

The Rating system is a guideline not a law. And if a kid wants to fight the reasoning behind it, in the long run you will have to admit them.
It was challenged a few times and it is just that a guideline and if parents do not care what there children are seeing you have no reason either to challenge.
Until it is the law you can only advise people against seeing it!

We generally try to avoid R rated films when we can. We stick with mostly kids/family movies and comedies as those are what do best for us. But on occasion we'll do the R rated comedy. Being that we're only a one screen theater and we almost always only have one movie each weekend, parents should know what film is playing at our theater if they agree to let their kids go to the movies.

I currently own 5 video stores and have been in the video business for over 15 years.

75% of parents of children 13-16 do not care if their kids rent/watch a "R"rated movie. Dittos for "M" rated video games.

I have lobbied the Missouri State Assembly to keep them from putting into place bans on kids younger than 17 from renting or buying "R" rated and "M" rated games. I always tell them that you cannot legislate good parenting.

Heck, just look at the number of parents who bring their 8 year olds to see a pg-13 movie.

If you are concerned, I would believe that you could have a policy in place that parents could give their permission.

We play it differently for each movie. Some movies we place stricter restrictions on, as in ABSOLUTELY NO ONE UNDER 17, PARENT OR NO PARENT. We once had a parent demand to bring his 13 year old in to see a movie we had restricted, and I explained that this is a private business, and we can refuse service to anyone. Tough crap. Was he mad, yes. But if I'm going to bring some of these hard R movies to my little town, I'm going to be strict about them. With other R movies, we loosen restrictions. It's a judgement call. Most parents appreciate it, and we even have them calling us now before hand to ask if it's a hard R before they'll drop little Johnny off. I sure wish they'd start using NC-17 ratings. I would still bring them, but I wouldn't have to explain myself so often.

In response to jacker5, newbie is right. Despite the fact that there's no law that forces theaters to abide by the under 17 rule, a kid can argue and reason all they want, if the theater has a posted rule (key word - posted) stating specifically or just that the theater has right to refuse service to anyone (example, regal entertainment group tickets state it on the back of the ticket, it even says management has right to pick your seating in the theater) then you can refuse service.