Aside from being a bit of a dead zone for cinemas, revenue-wise, the short time period might also mean a late-night cinema trip would end even further into the night – no small thing for a three-hour movie.

Additionally, the spokesperson wasn’t as convinced as I am that most cinema-goers would even enjoy a mid-film break. 

“While many people might welcome a toilet break, others would probably prefer to stay within the universe of the film for the whole run time.

“If everyone in a screen is trying to go to the toilet during a specific interval, there may be queues as opposed to being able to go to the toilet quickly on your own so it’s possibly also not that efficient, and… [is] potentially disruptive, especially for larger screen cinemas.”

And cinemas don’t always have the final say in whether they can offer intermissions to begin with.

“Cinemas usually only rarely request [intermissions]… they have to check it’s OK with a film’s distributor, who can say yes or no depending on how much flexibility they have on how that individual film should be played.”

Still, if, like me, you still think the pros of an intermission outweigh the cons, here’s an insider tip: “There is more flexibility on older, back catalogue titles than new releases”.