Prices for movie tickets rise after a box office lull in 2014.
A night out to the movies used to be a relaxing event, where you could get that large popcorn and soda without having to take out a second mortgage on your house. Prices at the movies nowadays are so that you have to choose between seeing the new Marvel film or putting your kids through college. And let’s be honest, you really wanted to see Guardians of the Galaxy.
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Things aren’t getting any better either. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “the average price of a movie ticket jumped to $8.17 over the past year” marking an all-time high for the yearly average.
The price change comes at the heels of 2014 being marking ticket sales being at a two decade low. Estimates for last year had a mere 1.26 billion people heading to the theater. Compare that to say 2002, an amazing year for movie going, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
"Moviegoing in North America hit an all-time high in 2002, when 1.57 billion consumers lined up, thanks in part to Spider-Man ($403 million), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ($339.8 million), Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones ($302.2 million), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ($262 million) and My Big Fat Greek Wedding ($241.4 million)."
Makes sense though. With the advent of original programming on Netflix and more and more quality shows and movies coming to television, box offices will see an inevitable falling out in the American zeitgeist. But don’t take my word for it. George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg very chillingly prophesied the downfall of the American cinema going experience:
"Spielberg: A lot of these young filmmakers that are taking their stuff to television would like to be making movies, but some of their ideas are too fringey for the movies and you need a big film festival to recognise your art in order to get a wider distribution [and] a chance for people to watch your movie. So that’s the big danger and there’s eventually gonna be an implosion or a big meltdown. There’s gonna be an implosion where three or four, maybe even a half a dozen of these mega-budgeted movies are going to go crashing into the ground and that’s going change the paradigm again.Lucas: You’re gonna end up with fewer but bigger theatres. Going to the movies is gonna cost you $50, maybe $100, maybe $150 … Movies will be these big ticket items because people will still take their chances [with them]. But everything else is going to look more like cable television or TiVo, with great programming that’s usually more interesting than what you’re going to see in the movie theatre. You can get it whenever you want and it’s going to be niche marketed, which means [directors] can really take chances if they can figure there’s a small group of people that will react to it."
So maybe it’s not such a bad thing. The movies will once again be a place where we can come to expect innovative, daring motion pictures. We’ll see films that push the boundaries of what we know as cinema and storytelling altogether.
Or we could just get another Transformer movie.
[H/T: The Hollywood Reporter]
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