It is a ticket price crisis. Vanity Fair says, “Movie tickets are more expensive than ever before,” according to Laura Bradley. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” this is exactly the state of affairs with the decline in movie ticket sales. Nicole Sperling and Christine Zhang, writing with Brooks Barnes of the New York Times, writing in separate articles a year apart (2023 and then 2024) from each other corroborate this scenario. The struggle is real – movie ticket sales are in an ongoing crisis of decline.
The combined research done in these two articles definitely shows a trend that is negatively sloping. Some people believe that the reason is that having movie franchises releasing several sequels just does not work. I disagree! The reason that the franchisees are successful is that there is a cult following that has a diehard appreciation for the content that, for example, Disney and Marvel produces.
Movie revenues are decreasing because of a change in the lifestyles of the average person globally. If I am an indication of the typical cinema, go out there, I do not go to the cinema that often anymore. Before I had a smartphone, I did. Now that I have a smart phone as well as several subscriptions to Netflix Disney+, HBO plus, Apple TV, all of which actively fund and produce as well as release films directly to billions of streaming audiences around the world, it does not take a rocket science degree to figure out that the audience is still there, but they are consuming the content in a different way and through different platforms.
So though the research in these two articles shows that box office numbers at the theaters are down, it is conceivable that, in fact, global revenue from movie production is probably at an all-time high when you look at the aggregate number. This aggregate number, I believe, includes box office revenue at the Theatres as well as the gross revenue of all the streaming platforms. I think that though people are not feeling Theatres in the way that they did previously, the demand is still there. (CLICK IMAGE for more details)
If movie executives want people to return to the theaters to enjoy films, the incentives have to be different. Movie theaters and film executives need to be willing to step into uncharted territory. Perhaps movie concessions need to be normally priced. This might mean increased sales volumes by a few billion dollars. Perhaps try a $10 ticket sale for a month pre-cursored with an influencer driven social media campaign. See what happens! Test the waters and see if the price elastic nature of the movie ticket price can be manipulated in a positive way. I think the options are there, but it’s just that there might be a measure of greed that needs to be overcome.
No responses yet