I think they should charge ticket prices based on the actual cost of the movie. For example, if a movie cost over $200 million to make, they could charge $10. If it cost $150-199 million they could charge $8; $100-149 million would cost $6; maybe indy projects and low-budget films below $10 million could cost $2. A certain amount of built-in profit could be assured to the movie theaters and production companies...

If they did it this way it would encourage moviegoers to check out low-budget and independent films, and it would encourage the industry to lower production costs. Why should Julia Roberts make $20 million for 4 months' worth of work?
-- jennyusp, Nov 22 2004

easy cinema http://www.easycinema.com
a variable price model for cinema tickets [neilp, Dec 18 2004]

More to the point, charging a fixed price regardless of actual demand seems like it makes bad business sense.

Charge 10 bucks a ticket for titanic, 35 cents for Gigli. Makes sense to me.
-- shapu, Nov 22 2004


Julia Roberts can get the big bucks because she can draw an audience big enough to recover the costs of a high-budget movie.

Charging more money for high-budget movies would probably drive down ticket sales. If you want to see the movies for less, go to an early show.
-- Freefall, Nov 22 2004


Welcome [jenny], looks like you'll fit in nicely here.

Base movie rentals on this as well. It doesn't feel quite fair that it costs more to rent indie movies at my local video shop than it does to rent the latest high-budget films from chain video stores.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 22 2004


.... and if I'm wanting my money back, I should ask how much money the producers of the movie lost to their star greed?
-- reensure, Nov 22 2004


More to the point, charging a fixed price regardless of actual quality of content seems like it makes bad business sense, except that you create the demand as well. Could this idea be extended to apply to 'spin off' items like small pieces of plastic in McDonalds?
-- gnomethang, Nov 22 2004


[FF] //Charging more money for high-budget movies would probably drive down ticket sales.// For the high-budget movies. But we know that. I'd argue that under the current business model, charging high-budget film price for low-budget movies drives down their ticket sales. It's like if every car was sold at the price of a custom italian sports car. Sure, if the cost is related to the cost of manufacture then less people will choose the Lamborghini, but people might buy more cars.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 23 2004


Besides, Julia Roberts gets $20mm for all of her work to date, cumulatively, since beginning her career, not just the time it takes to shoot the current movie in production.

It's similar to Picasso getting $24,000 for a pen and ink that took an afternoon to render but a lifetime to master (and that's now worth $450,000).
-- bristolz, Nov 23 2004


Voting for this because most of the comments strike me as knee-jerk market ideology and I want to compensate.

<tongue in cheek> It's somewhat baked, though -- very similar to Ferdinand Lassalle's labor credit theory thought out for a particular type of commodity. Marx argues vigorously against it in the "Critique of the Gotha Programme." </tongue in cheek>
-- Magpie, Dec 04 2004


Since the theatre's profit is made at the concession stand, charge a fixed price at the door and vary food prices.
-- mensmaximus, Dec 17 2004


If tickets to a multiplex varied in price based upon the movie selected, beyond the occasional special discount showings some places have, this would be more likely to discourage people from going to the cinema at all than to encourage them to shop for the best "value".

Besides, movie polularity already figures into movie pricing, at least in the U.S.: movies open first at more expensive theaters; once they stop drawing huge crowds there, they move to cheaper and cheaper ones until they hit $1-$2 cinemas. The more popular a movie is, the longer it will take to reach the cheap cinemas, and thus the more people will pay higher prices before it does so.

To be sure, going to the cheap cinema means the viewer doesn't get the same experience as someone who went opening night. The sound systems are not the best, and the film prints may show signs of fading, scratches, etc. but the experience is nonetheless pretty good [assuming it's a good movie in the first place].

To my mind, the biggest effect of pricing movies as you describe would be to ensure that films like Ishtar would be even bigger bombs than they actually were (who'd want to pay a premium to see a bad movie?)

While I do think first-run movie prices are outrageous, I solve this problem by generally avoiding first-run theaters. Thus, I decide for myself how much I want to pay for my tickets.
-- supercat, Dec 18 2004



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