Walt Disney Co. announced Thursday it will prohibit paid screen advertising in all movie theaters showing the company's films. The policy will begin in March with Disney's release of the film ``Pretty Woman.'' ``Our patrons don't dislike screen advertising, they hate it,'' said Richard Cook, president of Disney's Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Audiences, he said, ``do not come to experience the mundane. They come to escape it. We must not so insult our paying guests (with commercials) and we won't.'' Disney plans to enforce the anti-ad policy by revoking a theater's license to show Disney movies if it shows advertisements. Cook said the action was essential to the continued financial health of the exhibition of motion pictures in movie theaters. ``We have been told repeatedly by moviegoers that they do not want and will not tolerate commercial intrusions in movie theaters,'' Cook said in remarks given at the 1990 convention of the National Association of Theater Owners. The Disney announcement was greeted by some groans. A number of theater owners depend on paid advertising to generate extra income. Terry Laughren, president of Screenvision Cinema Network, the nation's leading cinema advertising company, said such advertisements bring theater owners millions of dollars annually. ``It's real money. It's not pocket change,'' said Laughren, whose company has placed ads in about 35 percent of the nation's 17,500 first-run movie theaters. Cook said Disney won't demand that theaters break existing contracts with advertisers, but the company will encourage the theater owners to get out of such contracts. Disney defines screen advertisements as commercials for goods and services projected on the screen in the same theater where Disney films are shown. Previews of upcoming attractions, slides projected for products during intermission and approved charitable advertisements are not affected by the ban, Disney said.
