Ready to pay $50 to see Stark's next flight?
Ready to pay $50 to see Stark’s next flight?

I touched upon this point during last week’s Everybody’s Talkin’ entry, but really felt like it deserved a post of its own. So if you’ll permit me…

I read something troubling recently in an Entertainment Weekly piece. It used a recent Paramount stunt linked to the release if WORLD WAR Z as a jumping off point to wonder whether the business model for blockbusters is about to change. If you hadn’t heard, Paramount offered fans a chance to see WORLD WAR Z early (two days originally, one day by the time the dust settled). Not only would feverish WWZ fans get a jump on the rest of would-be audiences, but they’d also get a poster, custom 3-d glasses, free popcorn, and a digital copy of the movie upon its video release.

The ticket cost for it all? $50.

Paramount used WWZ in selected cities to see if fevered fans of an upcoming film would actually pay three-to-four-times the price to see it first.

The article expounded upon this by pointing back to a recent panel with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. In that discussion, Lucas suggested that we could see a day where there are far less movie theatres than there are now. George wasn’t just talking about small independently run cinemas in smaller areas…he was also talking about multiplexes in mid-size and large markets that weren’t bringing in the gate. As these theatres closed, he suggested that going to the movies could echo the business model involve with going to see a live show – complete with a wickedly higher ticket price. Uncle George wasn’t done there. He went on to suggest that the ticket price could be linked to the title. So a film like THE AVENGERS could run audiences $40, while “a smaller film like LINCOLN could be seen for $7” (that’s a direct quote).

The final frustration came from the author of the EW article, who suggested that the pricing could further vary from how old the film was. Specifically, that in the same cinema of the same multiplex, a film could cost less to see the week after it is released, then even less the week after that, and even less the week after that.

Edit: This final idea would require a wicked rethinking of how the profits are divided, since the studio gets the lion’s share of the box office in the first weekend, with the scale slowly tipping towards the theatre chain  as the weeks go on.

The guy who created Jar-Jar Binks thinks he knows what's best.
The guy who created Jar-Jar Binks thinks he knows what’s best.

Where to begin…

For starters, I wish I could underline a core detail of the movie box office model to any studio heads mulling over any or all of these ideas. That detail is because moviegoing is as popular as it is because it’s one of the most economical forms of entertainment. You never see high-quality live theatre for the cost of a movie ticket. If you’re really lucky, you might be able to catch an up-and-coming band at a small club for the cost of a high-end movie ticket…but you’d really have to have your finger on the pulse for that. If you’re watching a sporting event for the cost of a movie ticket, you’re either watching minor league sports, or you’re watching pro sports from a nosebleed seat.

Studio heads, the people who go to movies a few times a year – the ones who really push your top-grossing offerings over the dam – do so because it’s relatively cheap. However “relatively cheap” isn’t as “relatively cheap” as it used to be. A family of four can easily rack up a bill of $85 – $100 between tickets, snacks, and parking. Show that same family a sticker price of $85 – $100 before snacks and parking are added on, and they’ll likely start spending their money elsewhere. I don’t know if you’ve looked around Hollywood, but times are tough for the average working stiff…nobody’s really in the mood to pay more right now.

The more troubling thing about this proposed model is that it isn’t tied to a better experience. You aren’t offered a better theatre, or comfier seats, or better food, or even an usher inside the cinema to shush talkers or wrap texters on the knuckles.

No, this proposal is all about buying an expensive product, and paying more to see it first. The pricing model is no guarantee of quality (far from it actually). It models itself after the fashion industry, where you aren’t so much paying for the garment as the label inside of the garment. As a matter of fact, it’s worse than that:

This business model isn’t based on the label inside the garment. If it did, the label would read “Abrams” or “Jolie” or “Sorkin” or “Johansson”. No – audiences will be asked to cough up for properties. They will be paying more because the film title includes words like “Star Wars”, “Hunger Games”, or “Pixar presents”. You aren’t paying extra for a certain designer’s blue shirt, you’re paying extra because you’re a fan of blue shirts.

A "second tier film" budgeted at $65M, helmed by a pedigree director, and riddled with an all-star cast.
A “second tier film” budgeted at $65M, helmed by a pedigree director, and riddled with an all-star cast.

There’s no other way to say this: This idea sucks.

It takes advantage of fan bases who want to see something as soon as they can, it doesn’t provide a better product, it’s entirely based on spec, and it degrades smaller budget films that are often-times a more rewarding venture.

If this did come to pass, I for one would find something else to do with my time and money. I’m not the target demo in this whole equation, which is strange because I spend more than most on movies. However, I do it because the cost/reward equation works out…and because I’m savvy enough not to get burned all that often. Where I get burned most often, and it’s not even close, is on the very sort of tent pole, brand-name, high-octane film this idea is targeting. If people like me aren’t even willing to take a gamble on those sorts of films anymore, odds are the increased ticket price will result in a zero sum game.

Hollywood – your product makes you money because of one simple reason: you stack ’em high and sell ’em cheap.

Don’t fuck with that.

14 Replies to “Pony Up: Whispers of Studios Asking More for Less. MUCH Less.”

  1. Amen to that!

    Around the same time of the World War Z premium discussion, Cineplex officially announced their “SuperTicket” premium plan, which will offer a digital download along with the film ticket (with the option to refund the download if you hated the movie).

    Offering a digital download with a premium ticket is assuming too much about people’s viewing habits. I for one, don’t decide whether or not I want the film on home video until AFTER I watch it. Even then, it’s only a very small percentage of the overall films I see (and I’m a person, who opts for physical media rather than download – I’d consider this plan more if they offered blu-rays).

    This is not a model I plan to support.

    1. Speaking of Cineplex, if you look at their online showtimes, you will see that they are pushing their premium screenings more heavily than ever (to the point that it can be bit difficult to find a listing for a “normal” screening)

    2. I couldn’t spot that at a quick glance, so I wonder if this is something they’re still testing. You’re right though, assuming that I want to own the movie I’m about to see is quite presumptuous.

      Hell there are movies I love that I don’t feel the urge to own!

  2. Ryan, the crazy thing about these ideas is that they’re ignoring one of the main reasons that a lot of people don’t currently go to movies. When you go outside of movie fanatics, what I hear from a lot of people is that going to movies is already too expensive. If $10 a ticket is already too much for a family, then you completely wipe out the chance of them going if it’s four or five times that much. The problem is with runaway budgets and huge marketing expenses, and they’re trying to make them up by raising prices. They’re drawing all the wrong conclusions.

    With the rise of home theaters and the ease of access to movies through streaming and other avenues, it’s only going to get easier to not go to the theaters. I’ve been impressed by our local theaters here that offer great deals like $5 on weekdays or classic movies every Sunday. Those are what draws in people who aren’t rushing to see things on opening weekends. Raising prices shows they’re really out of touch from the audience.

    2. I sorta touched on that when I mentioned how “a family of four can easily rack up a bill of $85…”. This theory seems to predicate itself that there are films everyone MUST see, when in reality that is becoming less and less the case.

      Sadly though, if this reality that Lucas is forecasting came to pass, your theatres that think outside the box and offer $5 weekdays could go the way of the Dodo.

      I’m not even saying that studios need to start making movies cheaper – just that they can’t spike the price that high.

      1. I’m not sure those theaters wouldn’t find a way to succeed. Several have put 3D into the theaters yet still keep them reasonable. They’re only $8.50 on weekends and maybe $10 for 3D. Plus, they’re in cool locations like a luxury hotel and a former temple. That helps a lot too.

        I think there’s a place for big-budget movies with large budget. However, some of them are just out of control. I can’t see how an adventure movie like the Lone Ranger can have such a huge budget! There has to be a way to do that on half the price and still make something grand.

  3. I fully encourage this, or something like it, actually.

    This may be just what it takes to break the reign of multiplexes, which have almost completely taken over as the standard form of theatrical exhibition. It’s funny, back before Multiplxes were the go to source of theatrical exhibition, Lucas was singing them praises saying it would be great for independent film because now you would have a place where you could go see little films screening in the same place as Hollywood blockbusters. Although you do see this happening in the core of major cities in major North American markets, it’s hardly extended out into the suburbs, where you’re basically greeted to multiple screens just showing the same blockbusters at different times. From that, the model evolved more into hype the shit out of your movie, get as much money as possible all at once and cut out. That model, needs to die. It’s killed the value of film criticism, the value of selling a quality product and the value of a fair and open marketplace.

    Change is coming, this is for certain. Theatrical exhibition is dying. There’s a myth that you need to see big tentpole movies in theaters to get the full experience. I call bullshit. In fact, the smaller the screen you watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on, the more endurable in becomes (please don;t mistake that statement as praise). So let the studios peddle their shit however they want. You have to admit, this is a natural extension of Hollywood’s current model, which is an extension of, let’s face it, what they’ve always been doing. First week sales are the product of expensive marketing and publicity designed to get as much money as possible. With geek fare like World War Z , if you can get even more money before the flick opens from the overweight, goateed, basement dwelling American who would rather get first dibs and get a poster, than I don’t know, put that $50 bucks towards going out and getting laid, then that’s their choice. If there’s money to be made there, Hollywood will make it. Hell I’d even throw in special access to a tied-in public forum where these guys can post public reviews or soundbites on the movie. I imagine they’d like that. Might as well kick film criticism in the nuts again while they’re at it. It doesn’t have much credibility left anyway. Even better yet, make the critics start paying too 😀 Let’s make Rotten Tomatoes redundant too while we’re at it.

    So Ryan, though I agree with your rage, frustration, whatever it is, right now Lucas is just talking out his ass since there’s no standards put in place to decide which movie would be worth what price, what factor’s determine how a film’s price fluctuates from week to week, etc. On top of that, theatre’s will need to get behind this plan as well seeing as it will most definitely effect their bottom line.

    What’s of more value here, and what would be a nobler cause for you and me and anyone who likes to write meaningful stuff about the medium we’ve chosen to love but rarely loves us back, is the pining for 1) a Hollywood that knows how to close the purse strings, because let’s face it, not many movies gross upwards of half a billion domestically. Most blockbusters cost around 200 to 250 million currently. A movie needs to gross 1.5 to 2 times it’s budget before it starts to see profit. Once budgets hit 300 million and above, not a single one of these tentpols flicks are going to make any money. In other words, it’s going to take a lot of dead Heath Ledgers to make in profit in that town anymore.

    And 2) the return of indie cinemas to see the kind of films that are best served on a big screen. If Hollywood ends up shooting itself in the foot with this scheme, while Joe goatee is paying 50 bucks to see Star Wars Episode 8: The Trails and Tribulations of Jar-Jar, dudes like you, and dear god especially me, are going to start looking for places to see the movies we love, for a modest price, with no bells and whistles and arcades and slidey-slides and tilt-a-whirls and all that other crap and you know as well as I do, probably better, that there are more than enough basements in Toronto just waiting for the opportunity for second run theaters to rise again.

    Just saying.

    1. Welcome back Mike, there’s lots to respond to here…

      The slow roll-out *does* still happen, but it will never again happen on a major studio offering (like what we saw with THE GODFATHER or BONNIE AND CLYDE). Where you see it now is with the word-of-mouth indies like BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, AMOUR, UPSTREAM COLOR, and WINTER’S BONE. They are what keep value in film criticism, even if they never play at “a theatre near you”.

      Theatrical exhibition is dwindling for sure, but that’s not a good thing. There’s an intangible value that comes with gathering in the dark to see these stories play out larger than life. We forget that for every seven or eight TRANSFORMERS or GREEN LANTERNS, there’s a big movie that endures…LORD OF THE RINGS, STAR WARS, E.T. and the like. While, as I mentioned, I’d start shrugging my shoulders at paying $50 for something akin to JURASSIC PARK, some part of me would feel a loss for not experiencing the wonder and grandeur that *some* blockbusters can deliver…wonder and grandeur that do not translate into a home theatre environment.

      Now that you mention it, I would never want the first round of chatter coming back from a movie to be “the ones willing to pay more”. Such chatter would be as rigged a deck one could ever deal from for all sorts of reasons.

      I would agree with you that Lucas is nuts if it weren’t for Paramount pulling this WORLD WAR Z stunt in the same timeframe. Remind yourself that not that long ago, Universal tried a similar trick by offering TOWER HEIST on-demand the same week it hit theatres. What’s holding these ideas back isn’t the model or the price point, it’s the titles they’re tying them to. Imagine if either scheme was attempted using THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, or TWILIGHT, or THE HOBBIT. The end result would have been very different, and it would have convinced the studios that they were on to something.

      That’s what scares me, and where Lucas is more right than we think: Eventually, a studio is going to guess correctly, and at that point there will be no putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

      Which leads me to your final point – the few remaining cinemas that are devoted to the indie scene. My friend, as I’ve said before, we live in Moviegoing Shangri-La. VERY few other spots in the world can support the sort of variety we are offered and make it (barely) viable. Were the reality suggested by Lucas to come to pass, B tehatres would disappear, and art houses likely right behind them. Screenings of the stuff that drives you and I would be confined to film festivals, and after that would only live via streaming and on-demand.

      It’s a bleak forecast – one that’s brutally possible – that’s why I hope that these experiments continue to fail.

  5. We’re already paying $100 per good blockbuster in that we shell out $15 ish for each shitty blockbuster (I’m looking at you Man Of Steel)before stumbling across a good one several blockbusters later. (e.g Prometheus, and that took a second viewing to appreciate it’s greatness).

    The only thing that will kill cinema going is greed(y movie studio executives).

  6. Paying $7 for Lincoln type films, $5 for foreign films and docs (which could be limited to several screenings a week,) and reducing the (normal) price for blockbusters after a couple of weeks, without the $50 premiums, would increase revenue for studios.

    Will any of that happen? Of course not, it would require intelligent studio executives.

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