POPCORN IS A delightful cinema treat (especially with Malteasers in) – but this man wants to take it away from you, because he thinks it’s ‘too noisy’ to be eaten during a film. Well.
Mike Shotton from Newcastle says the ‘noise pollution’ from popcorn often ruins his cinema experience, citing a recent screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens as when this annoyance came to a head.
He told the Metro:
I was really looking forward to that film. I knew there would be a lot of kids there but I also thought it would be full of true fans wanting to watch the movie in peace. I just can’t concentrate with people rustling and making noise. Popcorn is the main culprit.
Shotton started a petition to ban the sale of popcorn in UK cinemas, asking cinema chains to no longer “let open-mouthed grazers ruin our film viewing”. (He also accuses popcorn of being smelly and tasting of ‘nothing’, which we have to disagree with.)
Somewhat unsurprisingly, the petition has only received around 217 signatures, and inspired a counter-petition asking for ‘killjoy’ Shotton to be banned from all cinemas.
Shotton’s petition won, but only after he persuaded his opponents to cease and desist.
The next phase of his plan is to hand out leaflets outside cinemas asking people not to buy popcorn inside. We’ll see how well that goes…
