How Much Will You Pay For a Movie?

Upon reading this article, I realized I didn't see a single movie in the theater this summer....  Hollywood reported it's biggest "box-office haul in history" but with the lowest ticket sales in 13 years.  Easy to understand when you see movie ticket prices these days!  The Wall Street Journal reports that ticket prices have risen 20% in the last 5 years from an average of $6.41 to $7.88 this summer (averaging in matinees, children and senior rates).  Some of the 3-D movies hailed ticket prices up to $15 for "3-D fees".  Last summer I recall reading that with travel down, movie ticket sale were up - in fact by 5%.  This years attendance has decreased by 3%.  The article indicates that people are spending more time playing videogames, watching television or surfing the internet.

Industry analysts cite a host of reasons for our decline in movie attendance.  This was a summer of sequels including "Twilight", "Toy Story 3" and "Iron Man 2" which drew significant audiences but there were no "surprise" hits or "sleepers" to round out the numbers.  It seems that 3-D movies were all the rage, after "Avatar" (which I watched at home).  However, the ticket sales were not impressive.  In fact, some of the high profile 3-D movies including "Cats & Dogs:  The Revenge of Kitty Galore" and "Piranha 3-D" (what a terrible idea for a movie!) bombed.  Interestingly, these movies were rushed to 3-D format at the "last minute" to replicate the success of "Avatar".  This appears to have the industry rethinking the future of 3-D films.  Analysts also cited a shorter summer season -- by a week as a source of weak ticket sales.

The revenue side of this Hollywood season rose 2% over last year -- $4.35 billion compared to $4.25 billion.  This article means to me that we will most likely continue to pay more for that movie theater experience -- we'll all have to decide the value of that experience for ourselves...

Source:
The Wall Street Journal:  Friday, September 10, 2010