Ticket Pricing Strategies

Scheduling is one part of a film's success but for most people all it boils down to is how much are the tickets going to cost. Recent blockbusters have brought this question more into focus. Have studios gone too far or perhaps not enough when it comes to setting ticket prices?
The recent multitude of blockbusters has given rise to multiple ticket price hikes and extra surcharges that no one really wants to pay. In the case of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, high frame rate was supposed to be the next game changer for theaters. Tacking on an extra $20-30, viewers ultimately ended up rejecting HFR and either skipped it or watched it in regular 3D or 2D instead, leading The Hobbit to a disappointing opening weekend.

Now the newly crowned animated OW recordholder, Monsters University charged regular 3D prices. I wonder if perhaps this was a mistake. Monsters University was always going to be big but Disney probably could have added a blockbuster surcharge due to the stellar reviews for the first film plus the huge brand in Pixar and get away with it. Might it have pushed it even further into the 3.5-3.6m range? Maybe.

Compare that with Pacific Rim which hordes HK this week. Ticket prices in regular 3D seems reasonable with the additional $5-$10 blockbuster surcharge set by Warner Bros. It's not listed but if you look in the past few years, most blockbusters get an added surcharge. When you think about it more, does Pacific Rim match up to Iron Man 3 or The Avengers in terms of anticipation? Probably not but viewers will have to decide if paying that extra $5-$10 is worth the price of admission.

In IMAX though, ticket prices are unreasonable just from the sight of it. One ticket costs $140 at Megabox, $120 at Airport and $160 at iSQUARE...exactly the same as Man of Steel. But there is no explanation for this increase whereas you can gauge where Warner Bros. added Man of Steel's 2 surcharges in there. Man of Steel got a blockbuster surcharge then an additional long running time bonus but Pacific Rim does not meet the criteria for the long running time surcharge. How does Warner Bros. then justify the $20 blockbuster surcharge for Pacific Rim?

Nevertheless, it seems to be working out well for Pacific Rim in IMAX. No doubt this is just to increase its chances of a #1 opening in HK but we will see if viewers want to catch up on this latest sci-fi blockbuster or if they end up taking a trip to school instead.