I wish I had a link on this, but I was watching the Today Show which had George Lucas and Steven Spielburg on together this morning for an interview. They were saying films cost more to make this day and age and doesn't have the revenue to make up for the money. Actors, CGI, etc... Actors alone cost millions of dollars. I was listening with mostly half an ear when they mentioned that the price should go higher. Way higher. To Broadway prices, 100-150 bucks per ticket. To compensate for the price of the movie. They used After Earth and several others as an example (which I think any movie that causes Spoony to get hammered after seeing it is not a good example) for a movie that cost a lot more to make that's not breaking even. I'm curious: Do you think the prices of the theaters should go up? Do you think that they have the right idea? Myself, I'm going to try to hold back as much ranting as possible here. But, are you serious? After Earth is terrible because it was made terribly. Will Smith has a ton of talents, but writing and directing is apparently not one of them, and hiring M. Knight Shamilayn as a director also who has come out with some of the worst movies ever made lately. Not to mention George Lucas's record for the last three movies he made. Steven Spielburg, yes, he has made good movies. I heard Lincoln was fantastic, and I am a fan of his work. But maybe it's the economy or other factors that have people reluctant to spend 8-10 bucks to 25 on a movie ticket. That's just me, when I went to a tight budget, I didn't suddenly go out every weekend and watch movies. Hell, I have barely gone to the movie theater since college. And that place costs ten bucks for the refreshments and tickets. And it was booming.
There are some really great movies out there. A lot of which I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for. But 100-150$ is a really steep price and would make a lot less people go to see movies due to it. And what about DVDs with the movie in it? I can imagine those being a hundred dollars or more would definitely make them less bought. That's just ignoring the quality of the movie. If it's something great that had a lot of effort put into it and is pretty well-made then I'd be willing to pay up to 10 extra dollars for it. But like I said 100$ and over is pretty steep for most people.
A sky-high budget does not equal a good movie. It simply equals an expensive movie! This is a similar argument to the "used games prevent good games" argument, where less revenue somehow equals a lower quality game. While it is understandable that audiences are generally looking for good effects and the like, and it would not be completely sound to compare game budgets to movie budgets, many movies that have lower budgets than expensive ones do just as well from time to time. As a personal example, let us compare the King's Speech and Transformers 2. The King's Speech was made with a budget of about eight million pounds, while Transformers 2 was made with about 127 million pounds (converted from dollars). Now, Transformers 2 was indeed an enormous commercial box office success, by all accounts. However, the King's Speech, with its lower budget, still managed to gather quite a bit of revenue (almost thirty times its original budget, with approximate conversions), plus many, many awards. Yes, it is a strange example, and I believe that both movies have their merits, demerits, and definitely reasons why people watch them, but the point of this is to explain that a movie like the King's Speech, with such a smaller budget, can still be wonderful. (For further reference, if we do wish to get into ratings which I am always very wary about, the King's Speech is a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, while the more expensive Transformers 2 is a 20%, however it would still be inaccurate to call Transformers 2 a failure or objectively terrible because these are just critics' opinions, and people can make their own.) So no, I respectfully disagree with Lucas and Spielberg. Although I can understand, with both directors working with big-budget pictures involving quite a bit of work put into them (at least Spielberg at this day and age, anyhow). If anything, the trends seem to be that these budgets at least are generally paid off by the box office successes, if I am understanding things correctly.
The fact pf the matter is, if you don't think you can make your money back n a product, any product, you should cut your costs Hire lesser known actors, cut down on the special effects, whatever
If this were to happen I guess Movies would then become a rare or special occasion type of thing for families, couples, or just those that are bored and have nothing to do. The snacks alone are expensive so just think 20 dollars gets you nothing at the movie theaters. Now you make the ticket 120 you can forget about even buy a small size of anything. I mean if the idea was to increase revenue then its a completely horrific and flawed way of thinking. You don't want to go see a movie that was hyped and got these great reviews so you'll feel like throwing down the cash. You go see it and feel like an idiot because of how trash it really is and you blew all that money on that scrap? Yea good job c: People are going to be people so there will be those if this happens who'll go for it, but then that'll make wanting to pirate the movie or go watch it for free really be the way to go.
I work in a movie theater and I can tell you that, as it is now, studios can't just raise ticket prices like that. What they do is get a percentage of each ticket--I believe they can set some kind of minimum, but still the prices are largely dependent on the theaters--who are trying to keep it as low as possible. And even if they did raise things, theaters would find ways around it. The theater I work in is independently owned and managed so we have high control of our prices. Regular admission for an adult is $7. For some time we would run Tuesday specials, where we'd offer our matinee price ($5) all day. For a few years we had to stop this. If Warner Bros is taking, say, 30% of our ticket sales, that means that regular admission ($7) nets them $2.10/ticket. However, on Tuesdays, they'd be making $1.50/ticket. The studios would also get the number of tickets sold, so they would be able to work out how much we were charging; they said raise your prices or we're not doing business with you anymore. So we eliminated bargain Tuesdays for a time; however, given outrage by our regulars, we brought them back and just started taking the hit on ticket prices. We would only charge $5/ticket, but we'd still pay the studio 30% of $7--meaning we were losing profit. The thing is that the majority of theater revenue does not come from ticket sales--it's popcorn and candy. Our largest popcorn costs us a few cents to make, and then $0.05 for the bin it comes in. We charge $5.75 for it. That's why it's worth it for us to take the hit on Tuesdays--we're getting more people in the door, and then they'll buy popcorn. The reason for this is because studios are already taking a huge percentage of ticket revenue--we need to make it up. So if you're charging $100 for a ticket, get ready to pay $500 for a popcorn. Movies like After Earth cost so much to make because of waste. As people have already said, if you are not going to see a return on your investments, you need to reconsider the investments. For example, having Will Smith in the movie will draw a crowd, and therefore more revenue. However, if that additional revenue is not enough to justify paying a big name like Will Smith his big salary, do not hire Will Smith. After Earth didn't make money because the even the studio knew it sucked. Early trailers for it were in 3D--the movie did not release in 3D. Want to know why? It costs more to release a 3D movie (that's why 3D tickets cost more so stop complaining to me that it's out of theater greed tyvm). The studio realized the movie was **** and wouldn't do well, so they pulled the plug and tried to cut their losses. These days, people don't go to movies for several reasons: cost of tickets, cost of snacks, and the fact that they can watch the movie a few months later (or not even) online. The movie industry needs to adapt to this--if you raise ticket prices astronomically, guess how many more people are just going to say "meh, I'll just wait until it's available on Netflix"? A hell of a lot. Oh yeah, and stop producing ****** movies. Big name actors or directors and flashy special effects do not a good movie make. As a side note, people already ***** to me about having to pay $7 for a movie.
I think 7$ (8-9 euros in my case) a ticket is a pretty decent price all things considered, but as Misty said if it was to be raised for no good reason I can think of I' d just go meh and bring my friends someplace else, the bowling or something. That applies to the popcorn as well btw, theaters prices for junk food are such an obvious rip off I just eat before or after the movie, at that price I' d rather enjoy an actual meal. Many theaters here have a partnership with the nearest fast-food, if you buy a ticket with your meal both come a tad cheaper. When I lived in Rennes (whose proportion of students in its population is the highest in France) one of the local theaters organized theme movie nights : five movies in a raw from 10 pm to 8 am, Mc Donalds stuff distributed in between them, and animators hired to organize quizzes and stuff, with prizes for us to win, and ask what we want the next theme to be. I went to the Tim Burton and Superheroes nights, had they planned an Anime night I would have signed for that too. Can' t remember the price exatly, around 30 plus euros I think. It was really awesome, where else would I be able to watch Beetlejuice on the big screen or meet so many nerds to comment what we just saw ? I even won the Hulk quizz and got three DVDs and a huge Spidey toy. Going to work right after that was a *****, but it was still worth it.
I think if they raise the price much more, people will simply stop going to the cinema. £7 is enough as it is for a 2D film, I wouldn't go if it went above £10. Admittedly at the moment I'm going mostly on a Wednesday so I can get Orange Wednesdays (2 for 1) meaning we can split the cost and it only costs about £3.50. I can understand why they raise the prices, but people will simply wait for the DVD/Blueray and not bother going to the cinema.
Just an FYI... Will Smith was the big producer behind it. He wanted to make the movie with his son Jayden and helped with the directing and stuff. That's what I heard, anyway. He approached the studio about it. =3 I could be wrong. But yeah, I guess it's the same as gas stations who depend heavily on the convenience store revenue to come in and keep them in business. With the price of gas, they're getting a lot less.
Well . . . It'd probably be a good move for the movie business, at least on paper. You'd think raising the price would give them more money, but that's not right. Sure, you'll make double or triple the money off of a few people, but you'll lose business from a lot more people. Not everyone can afford to go to the movies all the time as is, or even go at all. The only thing raising the price would increase, besides the price, would be the amount of people who don't watch movies in theaters anymore. You want to raise the price by fifty cents or a dollar, you might get by without losing your viewers. You do something outrageous and you'll be bankrupt before long. I don't really go to the theaters now as is. Not a luxury I'm fond of partaking in. It probably wouldn't bother me either way.
No... I can't hear more of "buhu I am only rich, not a milionaire" anymore.. this world has SERIOUS problems, like "I can't afford to eat" and stuff... movies are expensive, but they also make much money all over the world, and even after as DVDs/Blu-rays . Broadway is expensive... because it is ONLY SHOWED AT BROADWAY! There are Operas now that are streamed over theaters all over the world, they cost as much as the normal ticket, and YES THEY MAKE WAY MORE PROFIT than the hundred tickets live... because the audience is way greater. The price right now is abusive as it is, not to mention the FAIL that is "3D cinema" that only exists for you to pay 10 bucks more for the same movie.
Going to see a film and going to see Broadway gives you a completely different experience, it's like watching a band live and listening to their music on CD- it's got a completely different atmosphere, the live is, on the whole, much better. I think prices are good as they are now as it's just enough to be a social thing every once in a while but not something you can go to every day. I enjoy cinema trips as it's a different experience to just watching the film on DVD in your living room and I am happy to pay for that experience but if the ticket prices rocketed then I just wouldn't go, I would not risk spending my money on something that may just be "alright" or worse. Of course, I don't think they'll do this as they're aware of the issues that people have already raised and they know there are probably better ways of bringing in money, one being making better films xD Of course, there are things that have tiny budgets that I would much rather go see then huge hollywood films. Another thing, I hear a lot of people moaning at franchises and things for doing something "just to make money", like re-releasing DVD's with new special features and yes, they probably are because that is what businesses do. There's no point in moaning about it, if you don't agree with it then don't give them your money otherwise just let them get on with it. I personally don't mind as long as the re release is actually worth it.
