AMC Theaters is bringing a Europen pricing model of movie tickets to the U.S., and it’s doing so with The Batman.
If you’re heading out to see The Batman this weekend – and really, who of us isn’t? – don’t be surprised if you pay a bit more at AMC theaters. During its quarterly earnings call this week, AMC Theaters CEO Adam Aron said it was going to be moving forward with a ‘variable pricing’ experiment for the new DC film. He stated that tickets for The Batman will be “slightly higher than the prices… for other movies playing in the same theaters at the same time.”
“This is all quite novel in the United States, but actually, AMC has been doing it for years in our European theaters,” added Aron. “Indeed, in Europe, we charge a premium for the best seats in the house, as do just about all other sellers of tickets in other industries — think sports events, concerts and live theater, for example.”
In Los Angeles, the tickets are $1.50 higher than for other films playing at the same theater.
Some in the film industry have been predicting this trend for some time now. As Variety pointed out, George Lucas told The Verge in 2013, “What you’re going to end up with is fewer theaters. 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 said at the same panel, “There’s going to be eventually day and date with movies, and eventually there’s going to be a price variance. 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.”
For now, this is an experiment in the U.S., and we’ll just have to see where it goes from here.
IMAGE SOURCE: Shutterstock – AMC – Jon Kraft
