{"id":35546,"date":"2023-04-24T07:23:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T11:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/?p=35546"},"modified":"2023-04-24T10:25:56","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T14:25:56","slug":"last-months-movie-sales-lowest-in-4-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/last-months-movie-sales-lowest-in-4-years\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Reasons Movies Are So Expensive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This February’s movie sales were dismal.<\/strong> Box Office Mojo has more<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In February, movie theaters racked up nearly $660 million in sales, dipping close to 13 percent from February 2010’s $755 million haul. It was the lowest-grossing February since 2007, and it was the largest February-to-February slip since 1995.<\/em><\/p>\n

With overall attendance optimistically estimated at 82 million, February 2011 was the least trafficked February since 1995, and it trailed 1996-2010 by significant margins. The low attendance was a result of having no momentum from a relatively weaker January as well as a largely unexciting slate of new movies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Right, and the fact that a normal (non-matinee) movie now costs $10.50+, depending on where you live, and that non-3D movies are now “at select theaters”. “A survey conducted by the American Association of Retired People show that 40% of seniors no longer attend films because they can no longer afford the prices,” according to Wisegeek<\/a>. “A sixteen year old making minimum wage must work nearly four hours to afford seeing a film and purchasing concession items.”<\/p>\n

That’s not to mention that cheap flatscreen TVs and on-demand technology like Netflix \u00a0and\u00a0Hurawatch<\/a>\u00a0 have made home movie watching much more appealing than it once was. Or the fact that concessions, like movies, keep getting dearer.<\/p>\n

Do movies have to keep getting more expensive, or is it a matter of a bunch of greedy movie execs hosing film lovers? Here are some of the factors at work:<\/p>\n

* Government ethanol subsidies are driving up the supply of fuel corn while driving down the supply of food corn. That, in turn, makes popcorn at the concession stand more pricey.<\/p>\n

* A growing demand for 3-D movies, which are expensive to make, has driven up movie ticket prices by 33% per movie<\/a> (for animated 3D films) in order to cover production costs. Blockbuster successes like James Cameron’s Avatar seem to have convinced movie executives that audiences want to watch more 3-D movies, and that they’re willing to pay. (The net result so far is that viewership is down; we’ll see if said execs have learned the flaws in their strategy).<\/p>\n

* Film studios are fighting for more profits because of the sizable dent piracy has made<\/a> in the industry.<\/p>\n

* Rising commodities prices–fuel, for example–mean it costs more to regulate the temperature of a movie theater, not to mention transport all of the concessions there.<\/p>\n

* Because of upgraded seating and equipment, movie theaters are more expensive to run and maintain than during the halcyon days of five-cent popcorn. Then again, they didn’t play obnoxious ads during those days, so who knows what the net cost actually is.<\/p>\n

* Some say the Screen Actors’ Guild and other industry components are corrupt<\/a>, so there’s money falling through the seams there. That said, aren’t movie stars getting paid a bit much, too?<\/p>\n

With rising prices, movie studio and theater execs need to offer people incentive to go to movies, not reason to avoid them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This February’s movie sales were dismal. Box Office Mojo has more: In February, movie theaters racked up nearly $660 million in sales, dipping close to 13 percent from February 2010’s $755 million haul. It was the lowest-grossing February since 2007, and it was the largest February-to-February slip since 1995. With overall attendance optimistically estimated at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":35547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79873,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35546\/revisions\/79873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}