If nobody saw your movie, one way to pump up the viewing figures is to get it shown as the in-flight entertainment on a plane.
It’s not like the audience would be able to walk out, and if they can’t actually switch off the screens, then it’s going to be an even more captive viewing experience.
Of course this approach can backfire horribly depending on the in-flight movie selection, and an airline recently ticked off passengers on a flight from Australia to Japan by picking a film that wasn’t so family-friendly.
According to news.com.au, a Qantas flight had a ‘technical issue’ which meant every passenger was stuck watching 2023 move Daddio.
The film stars Dakota Johnson as a taxi passenger who has a long chat with her driver (Sean Penn) about a plethora of topics, including relationships and sex.
The film they had put on was Daddio, which stars Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn. It’s not the sort of thing you’d stick on for a family viewing. (Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images)
There’s nudity and sexting in the movie, and all of that was on screens which a passenger posting on Reddit claimed were ‘impossible to pause, dim or turn off’.
They posted pictures of what was going on the screens that were directly in front of the eyes of each and every passenger, which included long sexting exchanges between characters in the movie.
About an hour into the flight, they switched to something a little more appropriate for all viewers but by then the damage had been done.
Qantas said that due to technical issues, passengers couldn’t select their own movie, so staff asked passengers what film they’d like to watch.
A number of passengers asked to watch Daddio, and once it became obvious it wasn’t the sort of film that was family friendly cabin crew tried to help people with their screens.
When that didn’t work they put on a children’s movie for the flight instead and apologised to customers.
The airline apologised to passengers for playing the movie which they couldn’t turn off. (Alexi Rosenfeld#JM/Getty Images for Qantas)
A Qantas spokesperson said: “The movie was clearly not suitable to play for the whole flight and we sincerely apologise to customers for this experience.
“All screens were changed to a family friendly movie for the rest of the flight, which is our standard practice for the rare cases where individual movie selection isn’t possible.
“We are reviewing how the movie was selected.”
Lots of movies that are available to view on planes are going to contain some quantity of adult content, meaning that anyone who does decide to peek at your screen might see something they didn’t choose to watch.
Perhaps this might be a good time to extoll the virtues of rawdogging a flight, with the unfortunately phrased trend resulting in nobody watching anything and all sitting pretty much stock still until the flight is over.
On reflection, that sounds really boring.
Featured Image Credit: Alexi Rosenfeld#JM/Getty Images for Qantas / Getty Stock Photo
Topics: Australia, Travel, TV and Film
