Movie Prices Up/Box Office Down/Thumbs Up

I went to see the movie Night At The Museum over the weekend. It was a great movie which I plan to add to my Top 100. It reminded me a lot of what I call "The Last Great Days Of Awesome Movies" (which spanned from 1980-2000). It was a very good family movie without too much violence and with very believable and likeable bad guys. (Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney who are both in their 80's). The movie, which is in it's 4th week of release was completely crowded. For the first time that I have been to a movie like this in a very long time, where there was a good cross section of age - there were no "gang disturbances", no cellphones, no crying baby, and no talkers. There was no usher walking in front of the screen with a bright orange baton.

I went with on a double date. It was just a really good time with lots of discussion about the movie afterward at Friday's where we shared some of the new "Fried Green Beans" (You GOTTA try these)



About the only thing that made my night less than perfect (for a brief few minutes) was that I noticed movie ticket / admission prices have gone up 6% to $9.00 in my area. (I went to the local Regal Cinemas, but confirmed other local theaters had risen in the past few weeks as well).

I thought with gas prices stabilizing and digital projection standardizing ... costs were actually lowering for theaters.

Now, I realize that this is lower than most Big Cities like New York where movie tickets are sometimes $20+ ... but $9.00 to see a movie is approaching gouging in my opinion. My first inclination is to complain from this point on if I have a bad experience in the movie theater again and get my money back. Before, I could just brush something off it weren't too bad of a problem ... but now I feel like if the movie is not 100% satisfactory ... I will complain. I also noticed that a small drink went from $3.75 to $4.75 and a small popcorn went from $4.25 to $5.25 (a 20% + increase).

It's a shame that factors like this will start to chase off potential box office dollars. I will certainly think twice before seeing movies like Star Wars Episode III 8 times in the movie theaters. (Blushing)

See also:

Zap the talker, the crying baby, or the rowdy teen!

Do you like movies, but hate watching them?