Are you ready for a gargantuan summer line up, complete with mind blowing films, long pined for sequels and visual effects that will make your brain leak out of your ears? Good – Because so are the theater chains. In preparation of a huge and potentially record-breaking summer, they have once again raised prices across the board on a number of their products. While normally they do this incrementally – a quarter here and a quarter there – over the course of seasons and years, occasionally they have been known to raise prices all at once. This time, however, things are a bit different. And that has caused a tremendous amount of complaining, second-guessing and negative stories in the press about the overall decision.
So what’s the big deal with the cost increases of 2010? 3-D pricing. Normal ticket prices have indeed risen, but not dramatically. Here in Austin, Texas the price jump ranged from 75 cents at one theater chain (our beloved Alamo Drafthouse cinemas) to a dollar at the major chains (AMC, Cinemark and Regal). Full price, prime time, mainstream films will now run you roughly $10 in this part of the country, up from $9 just one month ago. And while your price increases nationwide may vary, like mileage, this is roughly what people are looking at when going out to a regular film on an average night. A dollar more.
This is not uncalled for, nor is it unprecedented. Historically, theater chains raise their prices at once, tipped off by a promising season or huge, blockbuster film looming on the horizon. 1999, 2002 and 2005 all saw major price increases on the opening weekend of each Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace prequel. And while Avatar might be the highest grossing film of all time, it still has yet to eclipse the adjusted gross of its sister film Titanic, released 12 years prior – down by a whopping adjusted $230M domestically. The average ticket price last year, taking into account matinee pricing, (according to IMDB owned Box Office Mojo) was $7.61, while the average ticket price in 1997 was $4.59. Truth be told, they will be paying roughly $4 more than they were last month in prime time. (Box Office Mojo tells me that we’ll have a solid average by next month.)
This is true – if you see it in 3-D at an IMAX theater. That’ll cost you $19.50 per adult and $16 for the kids. In the most expensive city in the Western Hemisphere, it will cost a family of 4 a mind-boggling $71 to see HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON at an IMAX theater. Nationally that price is a bit lower, but still on the rise. The price increase is roughly the same in terms of percentage, but when compared with the 2-D prices they are dramatic, creating a mathematical disparity between the cost of seeing something like ALICE IN WONDERLAND in 3-D or seeing it the old fashioned way. Unlike Alice in Wonderland, which primarily used computer generated 3-D sets as backgrounds – thus giving the 3-D modeling computers something to work with when trying to create the 3-D effects – this film was shot conventionally, and thus doesn’t have data on a number of the angles and positions needed to create stunning 3-D and as a result has wobbly, float-y and sometimes very jarring visual effects. You haven’t seen terrible 3-D until you’ve panned past a tree that seems to be jumping in place as the computer tries to find out where to put it. And if audiences react the same way to it as critics have, we might see a very sudden departure from the love affair currently fueling the higher 3-D ticket prices.
One way or the other, as is the case every time cost increases occur, people will grumble, then they’ll pay and get so used to the new price they’ll groan when the prices go to $11. But are the movie theaters gambling on the longevity of the 3-D craze, or hedging their bets against it and making as much money as they can before it is over with?
