The Batman Tickets Are More Expensive Than Other Movies At AMC Theaters

The mega movie-theater chain AMC will be charging more expensive tickets for The Batman, the company’s CEO has confirmed. Directed and co-written by Matt Reeves, DC’s standalone reboot of Bob Kane’s Dark Knight sees Robert Pattinson donning the legendary cowl as he takes-on the mysteriously cryptic terrorist The Riddler (Paul Dano), who is murdering the corrupt elite of Gotham City. The cast also features Zoë Kravitz as Batman’s morally-ambiguous ally Catwoman, Andy Serkis as his ever-faithful butler Alfred, Jeffrey Wright as Lieutenant James Gordon, Colin Farrell as the vicious mobster The Penguin, and John Turturro as the crime lord Carmine Falcone.

Despite maintaining its status as being the largest chain of movie-theaters in the world, AMC has not had an easy time of the past two years. The company announced the closure of all of its cinemas in March 2020 in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, a situation which lasted longer than they initially expected, and left the company in deep financial trouble. This was further exacerbated by the altercation AMC had with Universal Pictures, refusing to exhibit any more of their films after the production company announced that they would premiere new releases both theatrically and via on-demand streaming services on the same day. But while AMC resolved its dispute with Universal and managed to gradually reopen its theaters, the company ultimately lost over $4 billion as a result of the pandemic.

The company has naturally undertaken a number of strategies to recoup this extraordinary loss over the past year, and their latest approach looks to experiment with “variable pricing” for tickets to different films. As reported in EW, CEO Adam Aron announced the new initiative during an earnings call, confirming that tickets for The Batman will be”slightly higher than the prices… for other movies playing in the same theaters at the same time.” Aron went on to clarify that, although new to the United States, this approach is a familiar one for AMC:

This is all quite novel in the United States, but actually, AMC has been doing it for years in our European theaters. Indeed, in Europe, we charge a premium for the best seats in the house, as do just about all other sellers of tickets in other industries — think sports events, concerts, and live theater, for example.

AMC Theaters has already made significant leaps in its efforts to return to some kind of financial normality. The company recently announced plans to accept Bitcoin currency for movie tickets and AMC even saw a stock increase of 300% in January 2021 thanks to the enthusiasm of some Reddit users. But while the worst of the company’s pandemic problems appear to be behind it, this announcement of a new experimental approach to ticket sales suggests that its monetary concerns are far from over and that radical changes to its operations are still needed to ensure financial stability. Its choice of The Batman as the first film to receive this treatment of increased ticket prices also suggests the company’s confidence in how popular the film will be.

Although this will not mean any significant change for the company’s European theaters, it remains to be seen how the cinema-going public in the U.S. will take to this news. Although it seems a sensible choice of film for AMC to attempt this experiment on, given that The Batman has received such rave reviews, it may well be that the company is risking a higher chance of refund requests if audiences are unsatisfied with the movie that they have paid more to see. Alternatively, given that many have been deprived of the cinema-going experience for so long, it may be that most people will be unfazed by these new changes. Either way, AMC will not have to wait long to find out whether this venture pays off or not as The Batman releases this week on March 4.

Source: EW

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