Theater owners and film studios are fighting over who should pay for the 3-D glasses that supposedly enhance the movie-going experience, the Chicago Tribune reports. This is a big deal because 3-D movies are enjoying something of a renaissance — there are some 50 features coming out over the next couple of years using a format whose Golden Age was nearly 60 years ago.
Yes, not since Bwana Devil thrilled moviegoers with spears and jungle beasts spilling off the screen have movies that require special hardware in the theater and your face been so popular. These films are enjoying a resurgence because of such recent hits as Pixar's "Up" and despite such bombs as "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience."
The kids (real kids, not the digitally savvy teens to whom we often euphemistically refer) love them. But not everybody does, including Pulitzer Prize-winner film critic Roger Ebert, a total killjoy who thinks they actually destroy the movie experience:
If the incremental cost to the consumer for going to a 3-D movie was zero there wouldn't be anything to complain about other than the occasional specs-inducing headache.
But there is cost, and somebody has pay for it. It isn't going to be me — directly anyway. Consumers by definition ultimately pay for everything in some way, shape or form. Sellers can "absorb" a cost, by accepting a smaller profit margin, but you are still paying, usually by paying more for something else. This is how supermarkets, with their paper-thin margins, work it: they get you in the store with a coupon for money-losing Cheerios because they know you'll pick up a few extra thing that aren't on sale.
So, I'm gonna pay. The question is, how? Doesn't it add insult to injury to make me pay a direct tax for a marginally impressive experience that also requires me look Karaoke ridiculous?
Here are the numbers, according to the Tribune: the one company that makes these things, RealD, gets between $0.75 and $1.00 per pair of 3-D glasses. Apparently the lines were drawn about how to share this pain over "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," which opens in July. Theater owners said they would not pay the 3-D freight and the studio backed down this time.
The studios also don't particularly want to add what could be an enormous expense that eats into whatever profits they admit to or drags a bomb even deeper into a black hole. And yet, it is the studios who are creating a market in 3-D content, of which the theaters are merely a delivery mechanism. Studios put pressure on ticket prices with rental agreements on theater owners by costs to which they unilaterally agree — $20 million paychecks for star talent, for example.
But, except for 3-D fare, movie ticket prices are the same at a venue — any movie in the house you want to see is (say) $10. And every theater in town basically has the same ticket price: nobody that can charge $50 to everyone else's $10, unless that also includes dinner, door-to-door limo and a massage. Imax gets to charge more, but that's an entirely different film system that isn't for everything or everyone.
For their part movie theaters don't make enough money from, you know, screening movies. They rely heavily on another revenue stream: outrageously priced food for a captive audience. Concessions stands (and to a lesser extent those on-screen ads we now have to sit through like unstoppable video pre-roll) actually subsidize the ticket price. You knew this because of the zero-tolerance policy theaters have about bringing in outside food and drink. Those exorbitant prices for popcorn, soda and candy, easily rivaling the cost of admission, are the result of monopoly pricing power. In a way, you could say the movie itself is a loss leader for what is really the overpriced snacks business — but I digress.
And then there are the lowly 3-D glasses. A surcharge may be a small price to pay for the occasional adult treat, but the vast majority of 3-D films in production or rumored are aimed at kids, which means families, which means multiple surcharges because, as much as you'd like to, you can't send your young children off to see "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience" (I know I'm beating this to death) by themselves.
So, who should pay — or rather, how should the ultimate cost to you be distributed? We have a few ideas in the reddit widget below. Vote, or make a suggestion of your own.
Movie theaters, film studios squabble over who foots the bill for 3-D glasses -- chicagotribune.com
(The author drew heavily on his many years as a movie theater usher for the deep insights in this article)
3-D glasses? Yeah ...
While you can submit as many ideas as you want, you can only submit one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed.
