As a college student who gingerly spends his money, and has a wife to make sure he doesn’t spend his money on “stupid things,” I do try to make sure I’m not wasting my money.
Sure, I spend it on the stuff I need (food, drinks, gas and what not), but what about the stuff I don’t need? I already know it’s outrageous to buy a DVD when it first comes out (thanks to our endless amount of Special Editions) but what about the theater? I can still go to the theater and enjoy myself, right? Well, not anymore.
While researching a topic for an English paper, I ran across an alarming fact provided by a Pittsburgh newspaper.
See, in 2004 the average movie ticket price was $6.22. That may not be seem like a lot for, let’s say, a single person.
But what about families or couples who go to the show? What about people who go twice a month or three times a month? This is costly.
Well as it turns out, movies in 2004 had a record gross income of about $9.4 billion, but this is not due to attendance.
In 2004, the attendance for movie theaters fell 1.7 percent, which equals to 1.51 billion people. In 2003 it was down 4.5 percent from 2002, equally 1.54 billion people. That means people aren’t showing, but the prices keep going up.
There are two main reasons why attendance is dropping. The first is the production of movies. In 2004, the average cost for making a movie was $98 million, a 5 percent drop. In 2003, the average cost for making a movie was at an all-time record, $102.9 million.
Hollywood is spending big money to produce bad movies. Looking at 2003, it was a year of big money movies making big flops.
That year included the two sequels of The Matrix. The second one started off making big money, but once word spread on how people didn’t like it, it slowly stopped making big money.
After the first weekend (which produced a little over $91 million), the second weekend showed an almost 60 percent drop in gross.
The third Matrix had a similar fate, making big money its first weekend of release, then dropping nearly 70 percent in gross.
What about Hulk? It made $62 million its first weekend and dropped 69 percent to make $18 million.
One of the biggest flops in 2003 was Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. The movie cost $160 million to make and made barely over $100 million.
What about this year? Take the highly hyped Elektra. Word spread on how bad the movie was, and Elektra wasn’t even in the theaters for three months.
In fact, no more than four months after its release in theaters, it was already out on DVD.
With a hike in movie ticket prices, I think many audiences are looking for high-quality, highly entertaining movies. Audiences are not taking a chance with movies anymore.
Sure, maybe 10 years ago in 1995 when the average movie ticket price was $4.35, people would have taken a chance with movies.
Now it’s gotten to a point where they’ll see it the first weekend, and if it’s good, it’ll make money; if not, then the movie will tank.
Theaters like to have small specials with matinee showings (any show before 5 p.m. I believe), but what’s the point. A two-dollar difference? Wow, who cares? With that two extra dollars, I can’t even get a gallon of gas or a gallon of milk.
Therein lies your problem.
Gas is now, as of this article, $2.15, and will rise in the summer. Milk is almost $4 a gallon.
In New York, a movie ticket price, non-matinee, is $10.25. The new Superman movie is going to cost about $200 million.
There is no middle ground for a consumer. We are living today’s high-priced world and because of that we are more cautious with our movie selection.
Do I want to see a movie I know will be good, like say Star Wars: Episode 3 or a movie I didn’t know about until yesterday?
The real question is: Do I really want to spend almost $15 on two movie tickets or (maybe) nine gallons of gas?

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