Theaters Restrict R Previews

Theater owners have adopted new guidelines blocking the showing of trailers for R-rated movies and strengthening policies to prevent children under 17 from seeing restricted films.

For the first time, the guidelines prohibit theaters from showing trailers advertising R-rated films before feature films rated G or PG.

The National Association of Theater Owners, with 700 members in the United States, issued the guidelines Monday. The policy was unanimously approved at a general membership meeting held last week.

The guidelines go beyond those adopted in September by the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents film studios. The studios' association only urged theater owners to stop showing trailers for R-rated films before G-rated features.

The new policies by studios and theaters follows Congressional hearings held in the wake of a scathing Federal Trade Commission report that condemned the entertainment industry for deliberately pitching violent adult content to children.

The theater owners' guidelines allow individual operators to decide whether to show a trailer for an R-rated film before a feature rated PG-13.

The theater owners' association is requiring members to examine trailers to "ensure that their tone and content are consistent with the feature film and that nothing in the trailer itself is likely to offend the audience."

The guidelines also require each member to appoint a senior executive compliance officer to enforce policies restricting access to R and NC-17-rated movies.

The policy even urges members to post extra security outside theaters during the showing of "extreme R-rated films and all NC-17-rated films." Movie studios will be asked to defray labor costs in such circumstances, the policy states.

The FTC report found that even movies rated R — which require an adult to accompany children under 17 to the theater — and video games that carry an M rating — for people age 17 and over — are routinely targeted toward younger people.

The report — based in part on documents submitted by the industry itself, including marketing plans — indicates that 80 percent of R-rated movies, 70 percent of mature-rated video games and 27 percent of music with explicit lyrics are marketed to kids under 17.

At two Senate hearings following the report, senators and witnesses held forth on the virtues of the rap lyrics of Eminem and Dr. Dre.

At the second hearing, studio executives pledged to make several changes to the way they market films, including prohibiting the use of children in screen tests, and a ban on showing R-rated previews at family movies or advertising R-rated films on children's TV programs.

The issue even found its way into the presidential campaign, with Democratic nominee Vice President Al Gore and running mate Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., saying that they would ask the FTC to take punitive action against Hollywood if they didn't act to change marketing practices within six months.

But Republicans criticized the Democratic ticket for continuing to accept campaign cash from Hollywood executives after the FTC report.