20 minutes of trailers and 10 minutes of AMC puff pieces including the Nicole Kidman OMG Cinema commercials.
Earlier today I went to an AMC IMAX theater to watch Dune Part 2 (spoiler free review, a great film), and instead of the film starting at the scheduled time we have to duck around for 30 min before the film starts (which even then isn't true since we get two 30 second studio logos).
I'm so happy that most theaters I go to are smaller with usually only a preview or two.
Honestly, this has been standard at every chain theatre I've been to for a decade or more. Once reserved seating became the norm, we just show up fifteen minutes after the 'start' time and walk in to the house lights dimming.
I stopped going to movies after covid, but i was at one movie whereca fight broke out in that exact scinario. A group showed up right as the previews were ending to find other people had taken their seats. Its escalated where the girls were physically fighting and the manager had to break them up.
AMC restarted the movie and gave everyone a free ticket to another movie after this 2 girls were escorted out.
Pretty much every theater does assigned/reserved seating nowadays. You choose your seat numbers when you buy the ticket. No need to show up early to try to scout the best seat or score 5 in a row or whatever. They’re just saying they go to their ticketed seat.
No, all the seats are the same price, at least at my theater.
My theater also has a full bar and really good food. Actual handmade wood-fired pizzas, wraps, sandwiches, burgers, fries, pretzel bites, etc. All made fresh after you order; it’s not sitting under a heat lamp. I think they have reasonable prices.
Even better, you can carry just your popcorn and drink into the theater, and they’ll deliver the rest of your food to your seat when it’s ready. Pretty awesome, especially with kids, to not have to figure out how to transport all of it.
Depends where you live, I guess. Before moving out of state, I used to occasionally go to a place in Wheaton, Illinois called Studio Movie Grill. It's like a normal theater but each seat has a tray and you can order food like in a normal restaurant. Each row of seats is elevated over the rows in front so that the servers for rows in front of yours don't block your view of the movie. I did find it a little distracting but I still enjoyed it.
As for beer, every chain movie house I've been to for years has sold beer and in many cases, mixed drinks too.