I Have to Pay $2 More to See "Cocaine Bear?"
Why a Movie Theater Chain's Dynamic Pricing is Ruffling Some People's Feathers -- Except Mine
BTW, I am actually looking forward to seeing “Cocaine Bear” when it comes out in the theaters. I just wanted to use it in the title because it sounded funny.
I love the movies. Always have.
Whoa, what a hot take, James. Pretty soon, you’re going to say you love oxygen.
Jesus, let’s start again.
I love going to movie theaters. I remember when I was 5 years old, and my mom, sans babysitter took me to see “Nightmare on Elm Street 5.” I remember my aunt taking me to see “Mannequin 2: On The Move” with some dude that I can’t remember.
Hollywood…Oh, Hollywood!
I remember getting dropped off at age 7 by my mom so my cousin and I could see “Home Alone” at the same theater. Bet you fucking helicopter parents messed yourselves knowing my mom left me at a movie theater at age 7 for 2 hours. Ha.
Don’t worry, I nearly got a whoopin’ from the cranky old theater manager for running down the slanted walkway to the exit doors. She was my mom for however long the movie lasted.
The common thread of those three movies is twofold:
1. I was someone’s burden and movies were a means of distracting young James. 2. With the exception of “Home Alone”, the quality of movies always has been hit and miss. Those first two movies, although wholly rewatchable are NOT classics. But we paid the same price to watch them in 1989-1990. The good ol’ days, right?
Damn, I sound old.
Live in the now, with all of life’s comforts and stressors.
AMC, one of the biggest movie chains in America, and known to a bunch of incels who think they are the “Wolf of Wall Street” because they day-trade as a meme stock that was popular during the Gamestop situation not too long ago, announced a program last week to have dynamic seat pricing, known as “Sightline at AMC.”
Here’s a CNBC story explaining it as well.
I can imagine the assholes pitching that to the board of directors so proudly.
Basically, it is going to mean you are going to have to pay more money if you want the “best seats in the house” aka middle rows, middle OF the row. It most certainly is a unique way to upcharge certain customers. You will be happy to know I don’t give a shit where I sit. I can see fine and hear fine anywhere. Technology is so good and how they construct theaters now is so good that rarely is there a bad seat in the house.
You got to understand I grew up in Albuquerque, NM, and I went to concerts at Tingley Coliseum, which was a converted 1950s horse arena for the State Fair. There were seats that were not only behind a fucking pole, but your legs can literally be straddling the pole like you are Demi Moore in “Striptease” or Elizabeth “Jessie Spano” Berkeley in “Showgirls”. Those tickets? No discount. You haven’t lived until you rocked out to KoRn with a giant pole in your sightline.
You thought I was kidding. There are seats directly behind those brown poles!
Now, you know me as a consumer advocate, fighting for the little guy against overdraft fees, late fees, resort fees… Basically all the shit Biden is talking about now. I train people in expecting great customer service and giving great service, and I show people how to properly escalate a “concern” should something go wrong, and don’t turn into a Karen with her cell phone pointing at a shift manager ready to blast away on TikTok. It’s what I do, and what I love.
That being said, not only do I not care about this shit, I think people who are crying about it are ridiculous.
Whoa. Bet you didn’t see my heel turn coming, right?
No, you didn’t, but it’s only because your emotions about this story are far exceeding your common sense. We deal with dynamic pricing all the fucking time in life, even in the movie theaters already!!! So why are we making noise about this? I will get to my reasons shortly.
I mainly wanted to write this because of Elijah Wood. I love his work, but I will be frank, I really only loved his work before puberty. I like “Radio Flyer” and “The Good Son” with evil Macauley Culkin and of course, “The Ice Storm”. I am not a big “LOTR” fan, and everything else I am indifferent about. But I respect his dedication to his craft, but not his hot take about this news.
He took to social media and said the following:
“The movie theater is and always has been a sacred democratic space for all. This new initiative by AMC Theatres would essentially penalize people for lower income and reward for higher income.”
Hey, North. It’s $2, and as you said, it’s a sacred democratic space. You are not FORCED to pay to see a movie. What’s your take on sharing Netflix passwords? He equates paying more for a better experience (which I don’t even agree with to begin with) as being Commie Russia. Dude, come on!
Are people who pay for bottle service at a club Mao loving commies because poor people can’t pay $10,000 for a fifth of Smirnoff or is it just a company understanding that it can and will make more money from certain people?
The unnecessary adjective in “essentially penalize people” as well.. by the way, I am guilty of that when I write. I fucking hate Grammarly for telling me how much I really suck at writing. Yes, it does ESSENTIALLY penalize people for lower income and rewards higher income people.
Just like Taylor Swift or Beyonce selling tickets on Ticketmaster. It’s like someone complaining about being penalized because I can’t smell Tay Tay’s sweat from the 400 level because they are poor and can’t afford the front row to live out their life’s dream. Yes, it is an apt analogy, and yes it sucks that you can spend $10,000 to see Taylor Swift and likely still have a hard time seeing her or smelling her.
But here’s the thing with that: You really really didn’t hear any fierce activism from TayTay or Beyonce on the over-inflated ticket costs for their shows, did you? You know why? (Taylor and Beyonce Army people, stand down. I am actually going to defend them here)
Because they get paid jack shit in residuals from streaming sites like Spotify. Making almost nothing there, and you, little miss big fan streaming your favorite song 229 times or so will make them $1. So I don’t fault artists for charging a lot, because that is a viable and reliable source of revenue over you just consuming their music.
Buy a $45 shirt too if you are really a TRUE FAN.
For 2 decades or so now, airlines have charged more for early check-in, window seats, aisle seats. Let’s not mention first class or business class. Is that undemocratic?
“I want a hot towel on my flight too! It’s classist that I don’t have a hot towel and a free drink in coach and this guy because he has more money gets those things in first class.”
That is legit what it sounds like complaining about it. Yes, it’s awesome to be rich. I wouldn’t know. I am poor as fuck, but life gives you chances to better your experience. Whether it is putting bacon on your burger, bottle service on the club, or paying for the full GFE with a hooker. (GFE is Girlfriend Experience, meaning you can kiss and touch and shit. I don’t want you to have to Google that.)
More money enhances experiences, and it looks like it has crept its way to movie theaters. So what?
I once got a room at Paris Las Vegas without asking for it that was 8th floor overlooking the Eiffel Tower and Bellagio fountains. Since I wrote a book on Vegas years ago, I knew that to be a $100 upgrade. While it was cool to see the view, my first thought was, “Some asshole pays $100 a night for THIS? Who cares?”
This photo was in 2012
Going to Vegas 33 times in my life, I could care less if my view was of the air conditioning. Who cares. You only go to the room to sleep, right?
That was in 2009, my first smartphone pic ever in Vegas.
Elijah Wood is way off base with those comments. No one said that people can’t go to the movie, it is just that they will have a few less options. Let’s not forget AMC said it would not have this pricing before 4pm and on Tuesdays. So, just encourage your fans to call into work to watch the movie then so they can sit wherever they want. But guess what? Those will still be in demand, so get there earlier.
Basically, AMC is charging more to get the best seats at the best, most convenient times, and pushing you to sign up for their monthly A-List membership, which will waive the fee. The real moneymaker? Your personal information which they will share to other companies, including companies that may or may not be promoting your next movie.
How do you feel about that, Elijah? That’s more of something to worry about more than a $2 increase in a movie ticket for the average consumer.
Also, the “Sightline” program will have ADA compliant seats and seats that are less popular with a $2 discount. So that pretty much leans into my theory that it isn’t about abolishing the poor and gifting the “$2 richer” people the best seats, it’s about facilitating people to purchase tickets beforehand, and push them to their A-List membership, which has a set cost, which will waive those fees and give them a one-to-one communication about “exclusive” shit they can buy for a price.
Because if they charge $2 less for some and $2 more for others, it seems like they are actually not making as much money as you think, right?
John Rocha, a movie critic tweeted this:
Classist shit? No. Classist shit is apartment buildings deciding not to allow you to rent their based on your credit score even though you have enough money to pay rent. Classist is not letting children who may have darker skin go to a better school in a more affluent zip code. Remember that Black mom who went to prison for that shit? That’s classist.
“M3GAN” seat options are NOT classist. If you want to go, you can go. If you don’t want to pay more, don’t get those seats.
What if they just raised tickets $2 across the board, but made you get the subscription to get a $2 discount with every movie? You’d sign up for that in two seconds.
Elizabeth Banks had some doubts about this program too. The film star, “Press Your Luck” bombshell, and now director of the upcoming “Cocaine Bear” had an interview recently where she opined on this news from AMC.
I’ll be honest. I don’t know if she was ready for the question to be asked or if she was trying to reach for a coherent answer, because it is a little complicated for all of us to deal with it in our own way. But hers was a good one, and I am not just saying that because I have a crush on her :)
Calm Down, James.
She’s an acclaimed director as well
"I don't really get it," Banks told Insider.
"I think the business model for everything in entertainment is in flux right now, so I understand that people are being creative where they can," she continued. "I just want to make sure that the widest audience gets to see the widest amount of movies."
"So for me, it's about access," she added. "I just want to make sure that we are creating as much access to our entertainment as we can. That's what I'm more concerned with."
It’s a much more adult point. She is saying what we all know is going on. With streaming, with pirating of movies, and with Netflix sharing, there’s really no way to truly gauge how much money something can make or how much something is losing by all these factors.
While she wants the widest audience to see her work, she also would like to have documented success for her new movie in the form of real box-office numbers, so they will give her more directing gigs and she can continue to make money in the field she chose. Simple, right? She mentions the phrase “access” as well. She is well aware that the access is still there.
What do we know about movie theaters? A lot of the big first-run movies have several screens in the first couple weeks. If a movie is sold out and there’s no seats, you don’t put people in the aisle, because that’s a fire hazard. Then at that point, you have a second screen if you feel it is warranted, you don’t complain about “we wanted to see the movie and they did not want to accommodate us the exact way we preferred.”
What if it is 7pm and all seats are sold, except the $2 more expensive ones? Then that’s something AMC has to deal with, not you. It’s not your concern, moviegoers. Let them go bankrupt on their own stupidity.
Elizabeth Banks knows that “access” is a very swiss army knife of a term. If they had a theater where they said, “No one under $80,000 income can come in here,” then I would be all about fighting that.
But don’t fault a company for looking for revenue streams when they are looking for the same exact paths through these challenging business models. They want to be able to stay in business so you can watch your movies, Hollywood! Remember, theaters have to give almost half (sometimes more) to the movie studios, which is why food at the theater is so damn expensive. That’s where they get to their profit margin!
So you, Mr. Sneaking in shit from home is actually anti-business and anti-American because your bag of Skittles that you bought at the grocery store for 1/5th the price is sending them into bankruptcy. I’m only half kidding. :) I’ll be taking Gummy Worms into a movie tonight. Viva la Revolucion!
It is easy to get mad without context as to why it is happening. Remember, I worked for a heartless corporation too for many years, and when something is introduced, it usually meant it was a step towards a bigger plan to fuck you over more. At the bank was deposit ATMs where you can also pay your credit card and transfer money between accounts. The second they made those things easy and available, tellers’ days were numbered.
This is what I think they are doing: I will put it in bold to help you out here. No upcharge for bold…yet.
I think Elijah and John should not look at the $2 upcharge now as the endgame for this. I believe in major cities those “premium seats” won’t have a “static upcharge” to them, but I think AMC will look to package those tickets into some sort of package deal where they can charge a CRAZY number but also create some bullshit “experience” out of that.
Here’s an example I made up out of nothing:
Kotex and Marvel Present: The Spider-Man 5 Ultimate Experience.
For $59, you will receive 2 “premium” seats in one of our 946 movie theaters. You will also receive a limited-edition 24 oz matching cups shaped like a spiderman-clad hand pointing at your significant other as you drink, just like the famous meme. You will also receive a Limited Edition box of Marvel Comics branded Kotex Tampons, where you will feel powerful like She-Hulk during those days where you feel anything but…
This is a $129 value for just $59! To buy this package, please sign up with your A-List Pass portal on the AMC App Today!
See? I pulled that out of my ass, and I made that ad out of nowhere…but you believe it could happen, right?
Thank you, Canva, for letting me see my vision through!
Save your tears, Elijah for that day, when these big uncaring businesses will laugh at you crying about the $2 upcharge when they charge you $60 for the same seats and throw in about .50 worth of the new MTN DEW drink and some tampons dyed green.
This shit already sorta happens. My local theater runs older movies like “Willy Wonka” and creates craft cocktails to pair with the movie.
When big businesses and big companies get together, your fucking chair will look like a NASCAR and you will have a bunch of useless popcorn buckets and plastic cups in your cupboard because you spent so much for them like the $45 5 foot tall drinks in Vegas.
I went to an Arizona Diamondbacks game years ago and sat in some shitty seat in left field. It was a $5 ticket at best. I paid $35. Why? Unlimited popcorn, hot dogs, soda, and chips. Still wasn’t worth it, but they sold it to me as an experience… A fatso experience.
Look, I am not saying don’t be mad at price increases. I am mad Cocoa Pebbles have went up a dollar since last year. Acknowledge that some seats are being made cheaper, in what you call the “poor section” by the words you speak, and that you hope this shit doesn’t continue to be bad for the consumer.
Because you know what I imagined is likely to happen, and that’ll be worse, because then, movies will be priced like minor league sporting events or medium-level concerts. Movies are not a utility, it’s not the water bill.
It’s part of your entertainment budget. There’s a reason I am not in Vegas every Friday and Hawai’i every three months. I have worse things to deal with than getting emo over a price increase for which the amount of the increase can’t even buy you a 20oz soda anymore.
They are training you to accept these changes with the use of the app, which means they can’t even face you and tell you that you are being upcharged. They will then gauge how you and others buy tickets and whether demand is there to push these packages, and then you will be out more money down the road. Simple as that. Sucks, but let’s not pretend this is the work of Cold War-Era politics.
And… Cut!
James