
Why is movie theater popcorn so expensive? - segfaultbuserr
https://thehustle.co/why-is-movie-theater-popcorn-so-outrageously-expensive/
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millstone
Hey invert the question. Why is movie theater food so junky?

AMC has some "dine-in theaters" where you can order burgers, beer, other
casual sit-down dining fare (think Applebees) at mildly inflated prices. You
can order at the counter and also at an in-seat kiosk, and either way they
bring it right to your seat, during the movie, in a hunched-down whisper-
scramble.

It's great! It fixes the "popcorn-only-lasted-the-credits" problem, and also
it's a meal: lunch or dinner, no mindless shoveling popcorn into your mouth.

Just a happy customer, but this seems like a new model. If concessions are the
money-maker, start climbing the quality ladder.

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ta999999171
New to us (US). Very common in EU.

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BrandoElFollito
Where can you find it in the EU?

I am French and never seen that in any cinema (Pathé, UGC). Neither in Germany
nor in Poland.

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WheelsAtLarge
As a teen, I used to go see movies for a buck. The movies were months old by
the time they got to the dollar theater. I always wondered how they made their
money. Eventually, I found out that they paid very little to the distributor
but they were able to make a big profit from the snack so it was worth it for
them to do it.

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cwyers
The distributor charged very little because they were film reels that were
returned to the distributor after the film's opening few weekends, as movies
left theaters to make room for new movies. So all the money made on those
reels was gravy before they were destroyed. (Some of those reels ended up
overseas instead, I think.) It's a different world now with digital
exhibition.

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catalogia
Spoilers: it's precisely the reason everybody already knows. This article was
a waste of time, it might as well say that water is wet.

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herostratus101
Exactly. The article never should have been written.

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dvfjsdhgfv
There could be a reason we don't know about - maybe it's for SEO or someone
ordered it.

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DeedsMoraine
It trolls people into reading the article to verify what they already knew and
feeling smart about it.

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RickJWagner
I suppose it's a beneficial model.

The price of the ticket is kept artificially low, so the movie itself is
accessible to more people.

A lot of the profit comes from the snacks, which are not a necessity. You can
choose to pay this 'voluntary tax' or not.

I like things like this.

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pattusk
> In fact, the price of a movie ticket hasn’t gone up much in the last 90
> years. In 1929, a ticket was $0.35; today, it’s $9. Adjusted for inflation,
> that’s a fairly reasonable price increase of 108%.

I'm sorry but how is a 100% price increase considered "reasonable"? Inflation
is already meant to account for the reasonable price increase. I don't think
the rest of the moviegoing experience has changed enough to justify a 100%
premium compared to 1925.

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hombre_fatal
Between resolution, sound, comfort, quality, and selection, it's not hard for
me to imagine that the modern movie theater experience is _at least_ 2x the
value of what people had in 1925.

I pay 2x the cost of matinee tickets just to attend in the evening, and almost
2x of that to get a reclining seat as a "VIP" ticket.

I can't even imagine how much someone's mind would be blown if you showed them
what we had in 2020.

1925-guy would have his mind blown in 2020 where you can watch any movie you
want on a screen that fits in your pocket and only pay a whole 2x more than he
has to pay for the ritzy experience of watching it in a modern movie theater.

Claiming injustice over a 108% price increase over the period of a century for
a movie ticket in an HN thread is actually cracking me up.

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teh_klev
You know, you don't need to buy the theatre's popcorn, just stuff your drinks
and snacks into a smallish rucksack. At least you know what you're stuffing
into your face.

Also, I'm guessing the reason theatres charge so much is because of the mess
left after a screening which needs to be cleaned up. Theatre goers are a
pretty messy lot in my experience...tipped over half eaten popcorn tubs, same
with half drunk beverages, mashed into carpet unfinished hotdogs. I can sorta
see why they charge a premium.

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chongli
The reason movie theatres charge so much is because all of the commissions on
ticket sales go to the studios. If everyone brought their own food then movie
theatres would lose money and go out of business.

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tartoran
If movie theaters go out of business the studios fail too. Maybe movie
theaters need to go out of business, perhaps temporarily, so the studios are
pressed to cough up more money. Well, that’s a naive thought, I know. Things
will improve once they can’t get any worse. I feel it’s getting closer. The
Oscars audience is in decline, studios are coming out with mostly crappy
movies and the popcorn’s quietly going up in price:)

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altmind
no answer in the article. because this is the maximized value for items bought
* avg paid?

also, popcorn COGS is nowhere near $0.90, if we are talking about goods only
and packaging(as in COGS), its less than 10 cents, throwing markups numbers in
completely different tier.

