Prices soar for movie munchies

I love movies. So much, in fact, that I’d guess about half of my brain is devoted to lines from my favorites. But with my busy schedule being a full-time student with two part-time jobs and a handy Netflix subscription, I hardly ever see new releases in the theater. So it was a treat when my boyfriend told me he’d be taking me to see the new movie Chronicle as an early Valentine’s Day present this weekend.

Aside from seeing an actual film at the theater, my favorite part of the experience is the deliciously buttery popcorn. It has to be among the least healthy foods on the planet, so we try not to indulge ourselves often. But since this was a special occasion, when I asked my boyfriend if we could have some popcorn, he happily obliged.

My mouth was watering when we opened the theater doors and the sweet smell of freshly popped popcorn filled the air. It called to me. “Eat me. Love me,” it whispered. I was giddy. That was until I saw the prices.

Now, maybe it’s because I don’t frequent movie theaters enough and seldom stop at the concession stand, but when I saw that a small bag of popcorn at the theater cost $6, I nearly fainted.

Six whole dollars. That’s six bucks, six greenbacks, half a dozen clams, or what people making minimum wage earn in roughly an hour. That $6 for popcorn equates to a 1,275 percent markup according to Yahoo! Finance.

I understand that theaters are facing higher costs from studios to run movies, and the movie industry is trying to offset lost revenue from online piracy, but something has got to give.

Consumers already sent the movie industry a message when they banded together to successfully thwart the Stop Online Piracy and Protect Intellectual Property acts from passing last month. Perhaps industry leaders don’t realize that high costs passed on to consumers are one of the causes of online piracy.

One of the problems may be that there is no system set up to track rising concession prices. The Motion Picture Association of America and the National Theater Owners Association both record average ticket costs from year-to-year, but ignore concession prices completely. Without cost comparisons, consumers may feel intimidated to take a stand on the issue.

As for my boyfriend and me, we still bought the popcorn. But from now on I think we’ll skip the pricy theater and snuggle up at home with our Netflix subscription instead.