What's up with the box office prices these days?

[snoopy]

The local theater is up to $9.25, and the place was still packed Friday night- I guess people just gotta see the movies in the theater. Why am I paying so much to see mediocre movies?

[Krom]

Because piracy is driving up the prices of course. Thats why the movie indistry is making record profits. DUH!

[WillyP]

Uh.. lemme get this straight... Piracy is hurting the movie industries profits... so the increase in price is neccesary to cover that... and the increase leads to higher profits?

[Krom]

I guess I needed a [/sarcasm] tag at the end.

No, piracy is an excuse for the movie industry to raise ticket prices so they can make more money.

[dissent]

It's a market system; when the price gets too high, it will exceed the market demand and put negative pressure on prices. Isn't it the case already that the actual numbers of tickets sold has been falling; receipts go up only because of the higher price per ticket.

[Mobius]

The top theatres charge $16 here. If you want to sit on a balcony, in an armchair, then make that $20.

[Robo]

About £4.50 here, which I'd say is about $7.50.

[Duper]

I guess I needed a [/sarcasm] tag at the end.

No, piracy is an excuse for the movie industry to raise ticket prices so they can make more money.

indeed. most movies that are released make squat at the boxoffice. Maybe if they made good flicks they would sell more. thney should know by now what really sells. Look at harry Potter and the LOTR series. All sold nearly a billion dollars in global theater sales. Titanic grossed well over a billion. .. d00d! one b-i-l-l-i-o-n... sure.. piracy is uhum ..hurting them.

Not all movies sell like that of course, but there is no reason to make a movie that isn't going to clear its costs. Producers should know what will do well and what won't on a reasonable level by now. If product managers, where I work, forcasted product sales like Hollywood does, they wouldn't be with our company very long. For instance.. none of the movies that are in the Oscars this years did well at all in the box office. It's all pretense and ass-kissing.

Where ticket prices are concerned, it's making up for bad choices and greed.

[MD-2389]

And on-top of that, nearly every movie rebounds in DVD sales so no, the MPAA isn't loosing a dime to piracy.

Oh, the matinee price around here is roughly $6.