Calculating the cost of movie tickets
The cost of going to the movies has increased sharply since the early days of cinema, but has climbed at less than the inflation rate in recent decades. Average prices, as calculated by the Motion Picture Assn. of America, include matinee showings and other discounts. Tickets tend to cost more than the national average in metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles.
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In Berkeley circa 1971, a weekend matinee at the local movie house cost about a buck. Ten-year-old Projector, flush with his $5 weekly allowance, could catch "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory," hit the concession stand for popcorn, a Coke and Bon-Bons, and still have enough cash left over to buy the next week's essentials at the corner store: baseball cards, Hershey bars and comic books.
Like everything else, the economics of moviegoing has gotten more complicated. With baby-sitting and dinner, a recent Friday night at the multiplex cost Mr. and Mrs. Projector $73.66. (That tab, by the way, does not include the two hours of our lives spent watching "Leatherheads." Call that a write-off.) No wonder so many folks simply flop down in front of their flat screen TVs and pop in DVDs from Netflix or Blockbuster.
And yet this year's summer movie season could be surprisingly lucrative for studios and exhibitors. No matter what the Old Farmer's Almanac says, summer begins with the first big-budget spectacle of May, and this year that would be Thursday night's opening of Paramount Pictures' "Iron Man," starring Robert Downey Jr. as the Marvel superhero. The other likely standouts of summer include "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" and Pixar's "WALL-E." And if Projector were a gambler -- which he is -- he'd never bet against Will Smith on Fourth of July weekend, this time in "Hancock."
Week in and week out, Projector exposes the often-bitter truth about Hollywood. On one point, though, he must back the industry line with gusto. Call Projector creaky, but nothing matches the moviegoing experience or offers a better entertainment value. Consider:
Since Projector lined up with a horde of other freckly nerds for the original "Star Wars" in 1977, when the average U.S. movie ticket cost $2.23, the price of admission has climbed less than the rate of inflation. That same ticket, in today's dollars, would cost $7.86 -- or well above the latest norm of $6.88. These averages include rural theaters and matinee, senior and child discounts; in L.A., the price of movies, like almost everything else, runs higher.
