How do Movie Theaters decide which Trailers to show? (By stereotyping their audiences)

Before seeing Clash of the Titans in 3-D, filmgoers at AMC theaters must sit through previews for the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, Salt, and Step Up 3-D, among others. These films have little in common and seem intended for vastly different audiences. How do movie theaters decide which trailers to show?

The "quadrant" system. As many as six trailers play before features at major chains, like AMC and Regal. The studio releasing a given film typically has automatic rights to two of these slots, and theater executives (in consultation with higher-ups from various studios) select the remaining four. Though theoretically studios and theaters could attach any trailer to any movie, they usually decide which releases to promote by using the "quadrant" system, which divides potential audiences into four different categories: men under 25, women under 25, men over 25, and women over 25. Before chick flicks, theaters play previews for romantic dramas as well as romantic comedies, because they figure that's what young women will eventually want to see. Regal Cinemas also began matching red band trailers, which include profanity and sexually explicit scenes, with R, NC-17, and unrated movies in 2008. And sometimes theaters disregard quadrants altogether if something else ties the movies together—say, if they're all in 3-D. (It's impossible to show a 3-D trailer before a 2-D movie, since those audiences aren't wearing special glasses.)

Of course, since there are often more than four possible previews available in a given quadrant, negotiating which trailers make the cut can be tricky. The young men going to see Clash of the Titans might enjoy learning about any number of upcoming movies—Kick-Ass, The Losers, Iron Man 2—in addition to the films already being advertised before the feature. Theaters further narrow the field by trying to treat all major studios more or less equally. They might play Warner Bros. trailers on 20 percent of all screens and Disney trailers on 30 percent, for example. The same trailers don't always play before the same movie at every branch of a large chain, so it's possible to spread the wealth around.

Sometimes distributors don't want to settle for equal treatment. Every studio wants its own films to piggyback on surefire hits, regardless of quadrants. As TiVo, the cable renaissance, and the Internet have eaten away at television audiences, theatrical trailers have become more and more important as marketing tools. Moviegoers are a captive audience, after all—and studios will do whatever they can to take advantage. Though such behavior is frowned upon, executives have on occasion paid exorbitant amounts to ensure that their trailers will be well-placed, as when Sony's Jeff Blake gave a theater chain $100,000 to ensure that the trailer for The Animal, a Rob Schneider vehicle, would be shown before Universal's The Mummy Returns in 2002.

The trailer placement system at independent theaters is much simpler: They only show trailers for movies that will soon be playing on one of their screens. For these exhibitors, the calendar is the only factor at play—and sometimes, their coming attractions don't even have trailers, which simplifies things even further.

Have we entered the Biopolitical Age?

We're obsessed with enhancing our bodies and tuning up our brains; already, our pop culture is full of heroic, cyborg megamutants. But what does it all mean? A seminar in Irvine, CA aims to find out, by exploring "biopolitics."

Caveat: I am a speaker at this seminar, so naturally I'm pretty excited about it. If you're in the Orange County, CA area on Friday, consider coming out to see luminaries like David Brin, Natasha Vita-More, Jess Nevins, and Jamais Cascio (and me!) discuss transhumanism and "The Biopolitics of Popular Culture." Organized by transhumanist braniac James Hughes, the conference will address our biotech future as a meme in pop culture as well as scientific development. Here's a description from the program:

"Popular culture is full of tropes and cliches that shape our debates about emerging technologies. Our most transcendent expectations for technology come from pop culture, and the most common objections to emerging technologies come from science fiction and horror, from Frankenstein and Brave New World to Gattaca and the Terminator.

Why is it that almost every person in fiction who wants to live a longer than normal life is evil or pays some terrible price? What does it say about attitudes towards posthuman possibilities when mutants in Heroes or the X-Men, or cyborgs in Battlestar Galactica or Iron Man, or vampires in True Blood or Twilight are depicted as capable of responsible citizenship?

Is Hollywood reflecting a transhuman turn in popular culture, helping us imagine a day when magical and muggle can live together in a peaceful Star Trek federation? Will the merging of pop culture, social networking and virtual reality into a heightened augmented reality encourage us all to make our lives a form of participative fiction?

During this day long seminar we will engage with culture critics, artists, writers, and filmmakers to explore the biopolitics that are implicit in depictions of emerging technology in literature, film and television."

Here's a full list of speakers and a program.

Cost for the day is $150, or $100 for students, and includes lunch. For those who can't make it, the event will also be streaming live here, and a complete video record of the seminar will be posted online later.

Also, the venue for the conference is EON Reality, where engineers are researching 3D projections and other nifty virtual reality/augmented reality tech. There will be a demo!

Rupert Everett's advice to Gay Actors: "Stay In The Closet"

Rupert Everett has been openly gay since he came out 20 years ago, but he doesn't recommend that route for other actors.

"It's not that advisable to be honest. It's not very easy," he told UK's Guardian. "And, honestly, I would not advise any actor necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out."

At 50, the 'My Best Friend's Wedding' star says that homophobia in Hollywood has kept him from becoming a leading man. He says that heterosexuals are cast as gays (pointing to 'Brokeback Mountain' and 'Transamerica') but gay men are denied the plum straight roles and often reduced to drag.

"The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American film business or even the Italian film business," he said. "It just doesn't work and you're going to hit a brick wall at some point. You're going to manage to make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure they'll cut you right off. And I'm sick of saying, 'Yes, it's probably my own fault.' Because I've always tried to make it work and when it stops working somewhere, I try to make it work somewhere else. But the fact of the matter is, and I don't care who disagrees, it doesn't work if you're gay."

Everett does admit that his openness about his sexuality has afforded him personal happiness if not professional success. He's glad he's not one of the "plenty" of gay Hollywood stars still stuck in the closet.

"I think, all in all, I'm probably much happier than they are," he said. "I may not be as rich or successful, but at least I'm vaguely free to be myself."

The outspoken actor has never been one to shy away from controversy. He previously said that President Obama has "gone black" and talked about Graydon Carter's "monster cock."

You can read the whole Guardian interview here.