GREENFIELD — The Garden Cinemas plans to experiment for two months by showing movies with open captions to determine the popularity of doing so.

The Main Street theater already provides assistive listening devices and closed-captioning viewer screens for those with hearing impairments, and will use this pilot program to find out if the accommodation affects business on Wednesdays, historically the theater’s slowest day of the week.

“Some theaters are starting to experiment with it to see what will work and what won’t work,” co-owner Isaac Mass said, adding that it is becoming more common to see city theaters try open captions. “To see it in a rural market is pretty rare.”

Open captions always are in view and cannot be turned off, whereas closed captions, available on YouTube and televisions, can be turned on and off by the viewer.

Mass said all new releases will be shown with open captions on Wednesdays. Repertory titles — or movies no longer in their first run — and some specialty programming will have open captions if possible. “CODA,” which in 2021 won the Academy Award for Best Picture, was released exclusively with option captions. CODA stands for “child of deaf adult” and the film’s cast uses American Sign Language.

Mass said the recent success of “Godzilla Minus One” — a Japanese-language movie with English subtitles — is proof that a film can be a box office hit with open captions.

“Open caption is something that has been talked about within the industry for a long time,” he said.

Disability advocates say it is the most accommodating measure for those with hearing disabilities, anyone with communication or cognitive functioning challenges, and those who are not native English speakers. Some in the theater industry, however, have argued there is revenue loss because, unlike other accommodations, open captions can impede on the experience of those without a disability.

Movie theaters in Hawaii and New York City must provide open captions in some of their movie showings.

Films available with open captions over the next two months will be “Wonka,” “The Boys in the Boat,” “Night Swim,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” “Ferrari,” “The Color Purple,” “Mean Girls,” “The Beekeeper,” “I.S.S.,” “Poor Things,” “Argylle,” “The Chosen Season 4,” “Lisa Frankenstein,” “It Ends with Us,” “Bob Marley: One Love,” “Madame Web,” “Ordinary Angels” and “Drive-Away Dolls.” Tickets are available for purchase at gardencinemas.net.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or
413-930-4120.