“The Batman” tickets cost a little more at AMC Theaters as the theater chain experiments with new pricing, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard such a thing would happen.
What’s happening: AMC Theaters has been testing out a new pricing plan, charging a little more for a ticket to see “The Batman” — the hot-ticket movie for the weekend, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
What they said: “Currently, our prices for ‘The Batman’ are slightly higher than the prices we are charging for other movies playing in the same theaters at the same time,” AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron said during an earnings call, according to The Verge.
Flashback: “Star Wars” creator George Lucas said at a 2013 panel at the University of Southern California that movie ticket pricing would trend in this direction.
- “What you’re going to end up with is fewer theaters,” Lucas said in 2013. “Bigger theaters, with a lot of nice things. Going to the movies is going to cost you 50 bucks, maybe 100. Maybe 150. And that’s going to be what we call ‘the movie business.’ But everything else is going to look more like cable television on TiVo.”
Steven Spielberg, who joined Lucas at the panel, said this would happen without a doubt as theaters looked to charge more for high-ticket films.
- “There’s going to be eventually day and date with movies, and eventually there’s going to be a price variance,” Spielberg said at the panel, according to Variety. “You’re going to have to pay $25 to see the next ‘Iron Man.’ And you’re probably only going to have to pay $7 to see ‘Lincoln.’”
What’s next: Aron said that there will be “considerable upside opportunity ahead if we continue to be imaginative” on pricing models, according to Deadline.