WHY should the average moviegoer care about Jack Valenti’s screener ban?

Because it isn’t just about people in Beverly Hills watching movies in their homes instead of running their Rolls-Royces out to a screening room.

* If independent films can’t use screeners to generate buzz and awards nominations, it’s likely a lot fewer of them are going to get made.

* Stars will avoid appearing in movies their peers in the industry probably aren’t going to see.

* People who finance independent films are going to think twice about underwriting projects whose awards, and hence commercial prospects, will be seriously damaged by the ban.

* The economic impact will be heaviest on New York, the country’s main center for independent-film production, as well as the city where almost all specialty distributors, studio-affiliated or not, are based.