So I read this article that my buddy deutsch sent over to me the other day regarding an opinion piece on movie ticket pricing. I've got to say there's been a lot a buzz (it basically comes up with every big movie opening) about tiering the price structure for films based on their popularity and I agree with it. Before the whole 3 people that read this blog get all up in arms, this is pretty much a win-win situation for all involved.
First off, theaters have been bleeding money since the mid 90s and need to start differentiating themselves somehow and doing something different. Theaters have become sort of stale, not exciting and very similar to one another. To make my point, let's take a look at the industry. We have two major players in this market vying for the consumers hard earned dollars, AMC and Regal entertainment group. The way these two companies are trying to gain market share is through consistently building up the quality of their theaters...the problem, do any of you see an in-theater difference between these two companies? Another question are any of you loyal to a specific theater just because its an AMC or Regal theater? If you answered yes to either of those questions, chances are you need a better day job...Anyway, the point is let's shake up the theater industry a bit, huh!
Price tiering may hurt us when we want to see popular movies, but let's consider some other facts to this situation:
1. Price tiering allows theaters to charge less for less popular movies
Think about it...you may have to pay $15 to see Harry Potter (#1 film of last year), but think about going to see a movie like Cedar Rapids, Drive, Fright Night, or The King's Speech (Hey it won an oscar!) for $5. Many great movies aren't commercially successful until they hit DVD, so this won't affect you unless you're going to see huge franchises.
2. How much did that popcorn cost?!
Yes this is where the theaters get us, concessions...charging more for commercially successful films could open up the door to drastic price reductions in the ridiculous over-priced concessions at the theater. $11 for a bag of popcorn and a soda! You can get a full meal with that (including a beer) at the Twin's game.
3. The Twilight factor
Here comes the grand slam...it's going to be LEGEN....(WAIT FOR IT) DERY! If you want to go see a movie besides Twilight the weekend of its release comes, you're basically going to see that shit for free! Boom...at least we can thank screaming 12 teens and 42 year old cat ladies for something. Any big movie that has a huge opening would theoretically change the price structure of any other big film coming out this weekend. If you're wondering how that works...it's a little thing called supply and demand...
Anyway, I could ramble on for an hour about this issue, but I'll open it up to you guys. What do you think? Should theaters start tiering their prices for more popular movies?
While your argument has merit, we have to remember that movie theaters as a whole do not take in even 50% of the profit from a movie ticket. They make very little in the first few weeks, sometimes nothing at all, and it's only when they hold on to a film for a few more weeks do they begin to ingest more revenue. This is because most studios believe they're doing the theater a favor leasing the film out because they'll bring in enough people to buy popcorn and Dots. Additionally, while studios are making most of the money, theaters are suffering because studios do not have to worry about operating costs (lights, projectors, maintenance, employees, etc.).
ReplyDeleteTherefore, if a theater only makes $3 on a $12 Twilight ticket, they'll have to hope to sell a lot of those tickets to even break even. If they sell $5 tickets to movies they anticipate won't be a big draw, they arguably won't even make enough back to justify the electricity costs of turning on the projector to run the movie.
This isn't inherently a studio problem or a theater problem, it's a product of a shoddy relationship between the two. If studios made less, better quality movies, they'd retain more profit from their previous movies and not have to rape and plunder theaters to play awful ones (see: Jack and Jill). Then, as you also brought up, we wouldn't have to be raped ourselves at the concessions stands. But because they've gotten away with this dysfunctional relationship for so long, they have no reason to change.
In conclusion, to bring about change, you are correct: it must start with the theaters. But they can't do a tiered system until they begin standing up to the studios. They need to see how badly they're abused, and start demanding more than a 0-20% return on the first week of playing a film. For now, I'll continue waking myself up before noon on Sunday for the $5 matinees!
Here's the link to the article from the Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-do-all-movie-tickets-cost-the-same/250762/
ReplyDeleteKind of an interesting concept.