The Economics of Film

Seeing movies is a pricey hobby. I mean, it’s not like owning a boat or anything, but those ticket stubs and giant Diet Cokes add up, and in an economy like this one, you can’t just shell out for each and every film that crosses your favorite theater’s threshold. You’ve got to have some kind of a system.

For instance. The latest Harry Potter movie comes out, and I’m willing to pay the full $8.50 to see it at the midnight show rather than waiting for the Saturday afternoon matinee. In fact, I’m even willing to pay the $15 or so it costs to see it in IMAX, if possible. To take it even further, a midnight showing of a film my friends and I are as excited about as we are Harry Potter is an event—we may wind up meeting for dinner beforehand, or at least filling our tankers a time or two at the Movie Tavern. This winds up being a $20-30+ evening.

Then take something like the just-out How Do You Know. I think this looks cute, and I’ll see anything with Paul Rudd’s name on it. It probably won’t warrant a nighttime viewing, however—what am I, made of money? I’ll save it for a matinee on a rainy weekend afternoon.

But then there are movies like The Green Lantern, which I said I’d probably see, but it might get relegated to the dollar theater a couple months after its release. Ryan Reynolds or no, you’ve gotta draw the line somewhere.

My scale goes something like this: IMAX movie event --> Full-price nighttime movie --> Weekend matinee --> $2 theater --> $1 theater --> Talk mom into taking me next time we hang out --> Impulse Redbox rental as I’m walking out of Kroger --> Wait for it to maybe come to Netflix streaming --> Read synopsis on Wikipedia --> Nod and smile when its mentioned in casual conversation.

Or with a movie like Yogi Bear, you go all the way down to the bottom of scale where I laugh derisively at anyone who suggests we go see it.

A girl's gotta have priorities.