Movie Tickets Reach $US20

Starting with Shrek Forever After, three AMC theatres in New York will begin selling $US20 adult movie tickets on their IMAX screens. Even for a loose-moneyed film buff like me, that’s just too much.

After The Dark Knight, the industry realised just how much IMAX ticket prices could bolster profits. After Avatar and Alice In Wonderland, the same proved true, along with the enticement of 3D.

(Evidently, domestic grosses of $US533,345,358, $US748,590,960 and $US331,666,06, respectively, weren’t enough for Hollywood – nor was the fact that Avatar made $US120,000,000 just on IMAX screens, just in the US.)

So a more extreme version of gouging begins at theatres. And just as the public cried about $US10 movie tickets while continuing to flood the theatres in droves, many will still pay $US20 to see the latest Shrek, complaining about it until they forget that the world was ever any different.

But you know what? I won’t, not now or in the near future. And I’m about as fiscally irresponsible and movie obsessed as idiots come. That’s a bad sign for movie theatres and studios alike, as it means the more sane amongst you will bail on theatres for sure (if you haven’t already).

(Oh, but compared to movie theatre popcorn, tickets are still pretty cheap!) [WSJ]

UPDATE: According to an internal AMC memo, “several locations assigned the wrong premium pricing scheme for SHREK FOREVER AFTER. As a result several social media venues are blogging about ‘$20 SHREK tickets at AMC’. However, now that most theatres have corrected the pricing scheme, the story has become ‘AMC reacts to customer backlash and reduces SHREK ticket prices’.” Whatever the case, it looks like we’ve staved off the $US20 tickets… for a while, at least.