Movie Theater Mcallen Tx

Great Friendly Family Inviorment Low Prices just One Of Those Rare Low Price Good Places Still Around That u Can Go With Ur Fam or Friends N Have a Good TimeWhats the hurry? Wait a couple of weeks and take your family to a movie for a few dollars. Dont forget to stop by the dollar store to grab snacks first. It makes little sense to go to a discount theatre to pay $7 for a popcorn and $4 for a drink.

You get what you pay for. Biggest prob I have is that they dont keep their showtimes updated. Times arent what they say online. Even shows times for movies that arent even playing here anymore. WTFI mostly just dont want to pay the ridiculous prices at 1st run theaters anymore. These guys are still getting 1st run prices for soda and popcorn though. Overall, my 1st choice for watching the movies that really require the big screen to be appreciated!

I am worried about the water fountain that is at the entranced its leaking water and they never fixed it we need to save water even if we have money to pay it 🙁

Clean and affordable “dollar” movies! They have put in new seats and a purchase your own movie ticket station. Pricey snacks and drinks available. Parking available.I like this movie theatre. You can tell that they put time and effort into actually cleaning the theatre after each showing. The seats arent sticky, and neither are the floors. Plenty of space to move around, and a great selection of snack. For some reason, the popcorn here is the best Ive tasted from any theatre Ive been to. I went outside to my car because I forgot my phone. When I was walking back in, the guy asked for my ticket and I told him I had already paid and I was already seated. Instead of making such a big deal, he just let it slide and let me pass right on through. Thank you ticket guy. For that, 5 stars mang!Es un cine de películas de reposición es decir ponen películas que han salido hace 3-4 semanas en el cine, si eso no te importa es perfecto. Las entradas son muy muy baratas y el cine no es viejo, las butacas son nuevas y cómodas. A mi me encanta lo recomiendo al 200%.

This is a budget movie theatre so i like to go with my fiancee cause paying $30 for two movie tickets is ridiculous. At this theatre you pay less $5 for 2 people. The only thing is that this kind of price range attracts alot of kids who are extremely loud during tje movies and making loud obnoxious remarks. Its nice but of you get frustrated easily with plenty of other people talking during a movie then I would suggest to skip this and go to a nicer theatre

You basically get what you pay for.. seats were uncomfortable, floors were sticky, audio quality was really bad.. if you want to hear a bunch of kids crying and not enjoy your movie this is the place to go. Place needs a serious upgrade. This place is great, affordable, friendly and professional. Very clean, can actually tell that the staff takes time to clean, no sticky floors, the carpets are always clean. Popcorn iso delicious This place is great! Comfy seats, nice staff, and really awesome arcade machines to play before or after the movie. But! Dont come in the weekend. Ive come on the weekend about 5 times and every single time people talk throughout the WHOLE movie. I would rate this movie theater 5 stars if a staff member would at least periodically check each auditorium to make sure paying customers are enjoying the moving instead of hearing crying babies, loud children, and people conversing over each others day.

I have never experienced any rudeness. Everyone has always been very polite.The theatre was remodel a few years back .The snack bar has a good selection popcorn is awesome.Over all its great and you can not complain about the prices.You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. Also in late 1947, but in Havana, Cuba, the Duplex movie theater was built to share the vestibule and ancillary facilities with the previously existing Rex Cinema (open since 1938); they were both designed by the same architect, Luis Bonich. The programming was coordinated, so that one of them showed documentary and news reels. while the other was showing feature films. They were in use at least until the 1990s.

Greece’ s largest multiplex is Village Rentis, that features 18 mainstream screens, two comfort (special type of a mainstream screen, better seating and less auditorium), three RealD 3D screens and one summer screen. In total it features 21 screens.On 17 September 1998, the world’s largest cinema multiplex, Kinepolis Madrid, opened in Spain, with 25 screens and 9,200 seats, each seating between 211 and 996 people.

In India, the mushrooming of multiplexes started since the mid-1990s. Cinema chains such as Kantishiva Multiplex, INOX, PVR, Carnival Cinemas, SPI Cinemas,Asian Cinemas, Cinepolis and Big Cinemas operate multiplexes across the country. The largest multiplex in India is the 16-screen multiplex Mayajaal in Chennai.AMC Theatres has since built many megaplexes with up to 30 screens, starting with the AMC Ontario Mills 30, which was billed by AMC as the largest theater in the world when it opened on December 13, 1996. Three months after the AMC opened in Ontario, California, Edwards built their biggest theater across the street, the 22-screen Ontario Palace 22. If the two adjacent parking lots were counted as one, this meant Ontario had 52 screens on one parking lot, more than anywhere else in the United States. The construction of these two adjacent megaplexes in the Inland Empire was the culmination of a “bitter lifelong rivalry” between Durwood (who died in 1999) and Edwards (who died in 1997). Edwards was furious when he learned that Durwood had beat him to a deal with Ontario Mills, and later told Durwood, “I had to teach you a lesson”. The Kinepolis-Madrid Ciudad de la Imagen megaplex has been the largest movie theater in the world since 1998, with 25 screens and a seating capacity of 9,200 including a 996-seat auditorium. Kinepolis-Valencia, built in 2001, boasts 24 screens and 8,000 seats. Multiplexes (multicines) are very popular in Spain and they can be found in or close to most cities, displacing the traditional single-screen theaters. Many middle-sized and large cities have several of them, and they are also common in malls. The average number of screens per theater was 5.2 in 2016.In 1982, the 14-screen Cineplex in the Beverly Center Mall in West Hollywood, California, became the country’s largest upon opening. The Beverly Center Cinemas closed in June 2010.

Canada’s largest movie theaters over the years have been located in Toronto. As mentioned above the 18- (later 21-) screen Cineplex was the movie theater with the most screens in the world until the late 1980s, but remained the largest movie theater in Canada until it was closed at the turn of the 21st century. In 1998, AMC expanded to Canada, building large movie theatres with as many as 24 screens before opening a 30-plex there in 1999, which is the AMC Interchange 30. Then in 2008, the 24-screen AMC Yonge Dundas 24, adjacent to the Eaton Centre, was completed. Cineplex Entertainment purchased the theater in 2012, along with several other Canadian AMC megaplexes, bringing the company full circle. After that, some more were closed or sold to Empire Theatres. AMC exited Canada by closing the AMC Interchange 30 in 2014.The largest megaplex in the Southern Hemisphere is the 26-screen Marion MEGAPLEX in Adelaide, South Australia. The megaplex was originally a 30-screen megaplex branded as Greater Union but was modified to accommodate Gold Class and V-Max screens and was re-branded as Event Cinemas. The auditoriums sit on top of Westfield Marion, which is the largest shopping complex in Adelaide.

The question of who was the inventor of the multiplex is “one of the longest-running debates in movie theater history.” In a 2004 book, Ross Melnick and Andreas Fuchs identified five leading candidates: James Edwards, Sumner Redstone, Stanley Durwood, Charles Porter, and Nat Taylor.By 1994, building of multiplexes with 14-24 screens with 2,500 to 3,500 seats was the norm. The expansion of multiplexes also concentrated the market with the top ten exhibitors controlling 47% of the nation’s screens compared to 27% in 1986. The AMC Grand 24 opened in Dallas, Texas, on May 19, 1995, as the first 24-screen megaplex built from the ground up in the United States and the largest theater complex in the U.S. A 21-screen Edwards Theater opened at the Irvine Spectrum Center in Irvine, California, the same year. After a lease renewal dispute with the property owner, the AMC Grand 24 closed in November 2010. The building has been divided and reopened in 2012 as a Toby Keith–owned nightclub and a 14-screen first-run movie theater operated by Southern Theatres as the “AmStar 14”. This theatre is now the Studio Movie Grill Northwest Highway as of 2013.

Cineplex joined with Universal Studios to build an 18-screen multiplex in Universal City, California (now part of Universal CityWalk Hollywood), which opened July 4, 1987.Opening in April 1979, the 18-screen Cineplex, co-founded by Nat Taylor in Toronto’s Eaton Centre, became the world’s largest multitheatre complex under one roof. It was expanded to 21 screens by at least 1981.

In 1965, the first triplex was opened in Burnaby, Canada by Taylor Twentieth Century Theaters. AMC followed up on the Parkway Twin with a four-screen theater in Kansas City, the Metro Plaza, in 1966 and a six-screen theater in 1969. Durwood’s insight was that one box office and one concession stand could easily serve two (or more) attached auditoriums. Another AMC innovation was to offset the starting times of films, so that staff members who previously had downtime while films were playing at a single-auditorium theater would now be kept continuously busy servicing other auditoriums. Over the next two decades, AMC Theatres under Durwood’s leadership continued to innovate as it built one multiplex after another with more screens and more spacious auditoriums across the United States. According to Melnick and Fuchs, although Durwood was technically not the first person to build a multi-auditorium movie theater, he was “the man perhaps most responsible for driving the industry into ‘splitsville'”.

The first multiplex in Japan was built by Warner Bros. in 1993 but the multiplexes were outside Japan’s nine largest cities until Shochiku built Cinema World to the west of Tokyo in 1995. By 2000, multiplexes accounted for 44% of the market with the number of screens in Japan increasing rapidly from less than 2,000 in 1998 to nearly 3,000 in 2001. The expansion in screens and multiplexes also reduced the reliance on the grosses from the nine key cities, with over half of a film’s Japanese gross now coming from outside those markets.CGV Cinemas San Francisco 14, is a 14-auditorium movie theater multiplex in a former eight-story Cadillac dealership building on Van Ness Avenue at O’Farrell Street. It opened on 10 July 1998, as the AMC 1000 Van Ness with 3,146 seats listed.

The boom in new screens in the U.S. in the late 1990s and early 2000s led to multiple changes to Hollywood’s distribution model. During the 1990s, American film studios experimented with distributing quirky indie films and art films to megaplexes which would have had a much harder time finding a broad theatrical audience in earlier eras, such as the 1999 hit Being John Malkovich. However, after the turn of the 21st century, as multiplex and megaplex owners came to realize they could screen large-budget blockbuster films all day by staggering showtimes across multiple screens, movie studios jumped onto the blockbuster bandwagon and shifted their film slates towards blockbuster films based on existing media franchises.In 1963 AMC Theatres opened the two-screen Parkway Twin at the Ward Parkway Shopping Center in Kansas City, a concept which company president Stanley Durwood later claimed to have come up with in 1962, realizing he could double the revenue of a single theater “by adding a second screen and still operate with the same size staff”. Also, the shopping center structure where the Parkway was located could not support a large theater, so two small theaters were built to avoid that issue, and at first both theaters played the same film.

In December 1947 Nat Taylor, the operator of the Elgin Theatre in Ottawa, Canada, opened a smaller second theater (“Little Elgin”) next door to his first theater. It was not until 1957, however, that Taylor decided to run different movies in each theater, when he became annoyed at having to replace films that were still making money with new releases. Taylor opened dual-screen theaters in 1962 in Place Ville Marie in Montreal, Quebec, and at Yorkdale Plaza in Toronto, Ontario, in 1964.Europes’s tallest cinema multiplex is the Cineworld Glasgow Renfrew Street in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom at 203 feet. Opened in 2001, it has 18 screens and seats 4,300 people. Kinepolis Brussels, the first cinema to carry the Kinepolis brand, was the biggest and a pioneer in the megaplex industry when it opened in 1988. It introduced various innovations in visual, audio and conceptual aspects of cinema, such as hosting guests and special events. It now has 28 screens and 6270 seats. In 1965 Martin’s Westgate Cinemas became one of the first indoor two-screen theaters in Atlanta, Georgia. Located in East Point, Georgia, it was later converted into a three-screen venue after a fire partially destroyed one of the theaters. The Disney family film Those Calloways had its world premiere at the Westgate, the only film to have been so honored at that theater.

In November 1988, Kinepolis Brussels, was opened by Kinepolis, the European chain, with 25 screens and 7,600 seats, and is often credited as being the first “megaplex”.In 1915, exhibitor Charles Porter opened the Duplex Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, the first known instance of a dual-auditorium movie theater. It had twin 750-seat auditoriums in a single building, sharing a common box office and entrance. The Duplex Theatre’s history is poorly documented and it is unknown why Porter built his theater that way, though it was apparently a bit too advanced for its time. It closed in 1922.The difference between a multiplex and a megaplex is related to the number of screens, but the dividing line is not well-defined. Some say that 16 screens and stadium seating make a megaplex, while others say that at least 24 screens are required. Megaplex theaters may have stadium seating or normal seating, and may have other amenities often not found at smaller movie theaters; multiplex theatres often feature regular seating.

In about 1915 two adjacent theatres in Moncton, New Brunswick, under the same ownership were converted to share a single entrance on Main Street. After patrons entered the door, there were separate ticket booths for each theatre, and different programs were shown. The arrangement was so unusual that it was featured by Robert Ripley in his Believe It or Not! comic strip. Before multiplexes, some cinemas did show different films at the same time in one auditorium, such as in Cairo, Egypt, reported in 1926.In 1937 James Edwards twinned his Alhambra Theater in the Los Angeles area by converting an adjacent storefront into a second “annex” screen. While both screens would show the same feature movie, one would also offer a double bill. It did not convert to showing different movies on both screens until some time after Nat Taylor (see below). On February 25, 1940, the Patricia Theater in Aiken, South Carolina made news by becoming what is believed to be the first two-screen theater in the United States showing different movies when operator H. Bert Ram added a screen to an adjoining building and shared a common box office. The main screen remained the Patricia Theatre and the Patricia Annex became known as the Little Patricia. During the 1980s and 1990s, AMC Theatres was at the forefront of a massive boom in multiplex and megaplex construction across the United States. From 1988 to 2000, the number of screens in the United States exploded from roughly 23,000 to 37,000. By the end of 1997, the United States was home to 149 megaplexes with over 2,800 screens. The newer venues, especially the megaplexes, often wiped out smaller theaters and led to market consolidation. Aging single-screen movie palaces in congested downtown areas simply could not compete against the new suburban megaplexes with their profusion of convenient choices (in terms of films and showtimes), gigantic screens, stadium seating (a Durwood idea), armrest cup holders (another Durwood idea), video arcades, spacious parking lots, and state-of-the-art projection and surround sound technology. In some areas, “megaplexes became not just another option for moviegoers, but soon the only one, having driven all other theaters out of business”. From 1995 to 2004, the total number of theaters in the United States fell from 7,151 to 5,629. As noted above, the world’s first multiplex, the Regal Twins, opened in Manchester in 1930. The first triplex in the UK was the ABC Cinema in Lothian Road, Edinburgh which opened 29 November 1969. The Regal Twins were converted in 1972 to a five screen complex (Studios 1 to 5) by Star Group, as the first five-cinema complex in Britain.Multiplexes and megaplexes supposedly have two major advantages over traditional single-screen movie theaters: they can share common infrastructure and staff across multiple auditoriums, and variations in auditorium size enable them to better match capacity to demand. However, movie theater operators eventually discovered the problem with stadium-size movie theaters is that they share the same flawed business model as stadiums: high fixed operating costs, combined with the fact that very few films in any given year can actually fill all those seats (average occupancy is around 10-15%). Nearly all major U.S. movie theater companies ultimately went bankrupt as a result of this hasty development process. Among the few that were able to avoid bankruptcy were AMC Theatres and Cinemark Theatres.

A multiplex is a movie theater complex with multiple screens within a single complex. They are usually housed in a specially designed building. Sometimes, an existing venue undergoes a renovation where the existing auditoriums are split into smaller ones, or more auditoriums are added in an extension or expansion of the building. The largest of these complexes can sit thousands of people and are sometimes referred to as a megaplex. The Kinepolis-Madrid Ciudad de la Imagen megaplex in Spain is the largest movie theater in the world, with 25 screens and a seating capacity of 9,200, including one 996-seat auditorium. If you go to the Google Map and move the gold guy to the corner building which you think is the Family Dollar (but that is the next building 203), you will see a building painted half brown and half cream with Bonita on it. That of course is the same building that you see in the post card.Opened by 1924. In the early-1940’s, the Palace Theatre was operated by Paramount Pictures Inc, through their subsidiary Hoblitzelle & O’Donnell. By 1956 it was operated by Texas Consolidated Theatres, Inc, and in that year they remodeled the Palace Theatre.

1944-1969 Interstate Circuit, Inc. and Texas Consolidated Theaters, Inc. (Affillated with American Broadcasting Companies Inc.) Majestic Theater Building, Dallas, Theaters (83) (1967)

November 2017 shows the building still as split retail spaces. Perfumeria on the left at the corner, and Jyn’s Home Decor on the right. Original facade is still painted two colors. Orange on the left, White on the right.

This page displays a list of movie theaters near McAllen, Texas. You can view showtimes for movies playing near McAllen, Texas by selecting a theater in the list above. To change the distance range covered in this list, select a new range below. This is the version of our website addressed to speakers of English in the United States. If you are a resident of another country or region, please select the appropriate version of Tripadvisor for your country or region in the drop-down menu. A remnant of the Cold War, Kino International dates back to Germany’s socialist period. Today Kino International boasts a well-rounded art-house program and hosts a strong list of premieres, festivals and parties.Korean movie theater company CGV claims another spot on this list with its Cine de Chef theater, which gives a luxury spin to the “dinner and a movie” concept.

This may be stretching the concept of the movie theater since Secret Cinema does not host events in a single physical space – the location is determined by the movie screened. Opened in 1922, the Castro Theatre is one of the last vestiges of that bygone era still in operation. Its Mexican cathedral-inspired facade continues to captivate tourists and moviegoers. Where to find it: 4DX CGV Theater in Gangbyeon; 10F TechnoMart, 546-4 Guui-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul (서울특별시 광진구 구의동 546-4 테크노마트 10층); Tel 1544-1122 (Domestic calls only).

Its standout feature is its “social seating” plan – the 10 various types of seats are not screwed into the ground, but can be moved around within the space, making the movie-watching experience more interactive and social.Many other movie theaters also provide food and beverage options to moviegoers, but Cine de Chef stands out with its upscale French-Italian cuisine, courtesy of a former Park Hyatt chef.

You could be watching the third re-run of your own birth, but if you’re snuggled into a soft seat with buttery popcorn in your lap and a sound system that feels like its channeled directly into your temporal lobe, somehow you’ll come out feeling like you had a good time.Head to the Rajmandir for the ultimate Bollywood experience: the national anthem at the start, a choice of expensive and cheaper seats, the three-hour Hindi flick bisected with an interlude and applaud along with the locals whenever the hero shows up on screen.

Once you register, you are told the day of the screening to gather at a predetermined location. From there, hired actors put on a live-action version of scenes from the movie before the finale, a theatrical showing of the movie itself.Uplink X calls itself the smallest movie theater in Japan, with 40 seats. It’s housed in a multipurpose building managed by Uplink Co. alongside Uplink Factory, a multipurpose theater space and Uplink’s cafe Tabela.

Sitting through amusement park-type effects for such a long time may not be suitable for everyone, and people with heart disease, back pains, pregnant women and children under one meter are discouraged from entering.

This London-based initiative includes your favorite films, amazing locations – and hot tubs. Punters can book a whole hot tub to share with six or eight friends.

With the decadence of its lobby and auditorium, and the attention to detail in the wet plaster motifs on either side of the screen, the Castro presents simply what new technologies are attempting to mimic – the pleasure of the movie-watching experience. Sing-alongs to classic musicals are organized and encouraged.From your seat at Cine Thisio you not only get to view the latest blockbuster but also the Acropolis, and the Parthenon that sits on top. The best view is at night. The movie theater is situated along Karl Marx Allee, where entire blocks of buildings carry heritage status and are protected by the Denkmalschutz in Berlin. Secret Cinema is a London-based group that organizes monthly movie events shrouded in mystery. Patrons are told not to reveal the location or even the movie screened.4DX bills itself as the first 4-D movie theater in the world that screens studio releases, taking 3-D movies to the next level by introducing movement and scent, as well as wind and water effects.

After dinner, patrons can relax for the duration of the movie in the Quinette Gallay seats, specially designed for Cine de Chef. The seats are by the same people who make private movie theater seats for United Arab Emirates royalty.Alamo Drafthouse started out in Austin, Texas, and hosts a whole series of events including Heckle Vision, Quote Alongs and nights where experts rip apart Michael Bay popcorn blockbusters.But what makes the Alamo theaters really cool are its policies: no children under the age of six, no talking, an extremely strict no-cellphone policy (as this curse-laden voicemail left by an unhappy customer demonstrates) and no ads before the movie. The term “movie palace” was coined to describe the elaborately designed theaters that sprung up in the first half of the 20th century in the United States. Texas isn’t the only state that pays more per ticket. Other places like Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Washington, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, New York and California all shell out the big bucks for a night at the movies.It’s no secret that movie tickets have been rapidly increasing in price lately. In fact, according to Box Office Mojo, the average ticket price for 2018 is an estimated $9.16. In 1951, the average ticket price was 53 cents.

This price difference can best be seen with Alamo Drafthouse. A Drafthouse GA ticket at the South Lamar location can run you anywhere from $10.75 to $14.75, while a GA ticket at the Brooklyn location is $16.According to this study, the average general admission ticket price is $10.61, the average children’s ticket price is $8.03 and the average senior citizen ticket price is $8.33.

Welcome to Regal! Like most theaters, the smell of freshly popped popcorn permeates the lobby, tempting your taste buds. We know, it’s difficult to resist the divine smell of movie popcorn. That’s why we created this page with all the Regal concession and food prices we could find. Prices were last updated in 2019.

These food prices were recently updated in 2019 and have been derived from various sources including the Regal website, in -person theatre visits, and a number of reports we have received from visitors.

If you do happen to find a different price that is outside the range we provide in our table, please let us know and we’ll fix it ASAP – you’ll be helping out many people who are asking the same question.Regal Cinemas (owned by parent company Cineworld) is the second largest cinema chain in the world – AMC overtook Regal when they purchased Carmike Cinemas. So with around 10,000 screens, popcorn is on the menu for millions of fans every month. So, how much does their popcorn costm anyway?

The people search feature on Superpages.com is temporarily unavailable. You can still search for people on yellowpages.com since Yellow Pages and Superpages are part of one company.We found 6 results for Movie Theaters in or near Mcallen, TX.They also appear in other related business categories including 1 of these businesses has an A/A+ BBB rating. 2 of the rated businesses have 4+ star ratings.

From Business: Carmike Cinemas, Inc. is a premiere motion picture exhibitor in the United States with 283 theaters and 2,427 screens in 37 states, as of March 31, 2007.…From Business: Visit your local Cinemark Theater in McAllen, TX. Enjoy popcorn, your favorite snacks, beer, and other drinks with movies. Buy movie tickets with snacks online…

SuperPages – helps you find the right local businesses to meet your specific needs. Search results are sorted by a combination of factors to give you a set of choices in response to your search criteria. These factors are similar to those you might use to determine which business to select from a local SuperPages directory, including proximity to where you are searching, expertise in the specific services or products you need, and comprehensive business information to help evaluate a business’s suitability for you. SuperPages advertisers receive higher placement in the default ordering of search results and may appear in sponsored listings on the top, side, or bottom of the search results page.YP – The Real Yellow Pages – helps you find the right local businesses to meet your specific needs. Search results are sorted by a combination of factors to give you a set of choices in response to your search criteria. These factors are similar to those you might use to determine which business to select from a local Yellow Pages directory, including proximity to where you are searching, expertise in the specific services or products you need, and comprehensive business information to help evaluate a business’s suitability for you. “Preferred” listings, or those with featured website buttons, indicate YP advertisers who directly provide information about their businesses to help consumers make more informed buying decisions. YP advertisers receive higher placement in the default ordering of search results and may appear in sponsored listings on the top, side, or bottom of the search results page.

A recovery has been slower than expected. Cinemas in North America sold $7.5 billion in tickets in 2022, a 34 percent decrease from 2019, according to EntTelligence. This year, domestic ticket sales are running 24 percent behind the same period in 2019, according to Comscore.To shore itself up, AMC has offered $5 movie tickets on Tuesdays, introduced home popcorn products in partnership with Walmart, enhanced its Stubs loyalty program, announced plans to turn some theaters into Zoom conference rooms for corporate events and invested in a struggling Nevada gold mine. (Yes, really.) Last month, AMC announced its pricing experiment with seat location, which it calls Sightline.

“It’s a taste of what’s coming,” said Stacy Spikes, who co-founded the subscription ticketing service MoviePass, which he plans to reintroduce nationwide this summer. “The big theater chains are gaining the technology to implement variable pricing on a wide scale. This may have near-term financial benefits, but it may also reduce attendance of younger customers who are more price sensitive and key to future growth.”“When you change the way an industry has priced itself for 100 years, it is not surprising that there is going to be lots of reaction,” Mr. Aron said. “It is our expectation that consumers will adjust to this very quickly.”

Increasingly, theaters have been pushing customers toward premium-priced specialty tickets. On Saturday evening at AMC Lincoln Square in New York, for instance, patrons interested in the boxing drama “Creed III” could choose from three IMAX screenings (a $7 to $11 surcharge, depending on seat location), three screenings with Dolby audio and visual technology and reclining chairs ($8 to $12 more), and two standard screenings ($18 for a regular adult ticket).“In these inflationary times, we are coming under pressure to raise prices,” Mr. Aron said in an interview. “We could have raised prices on every seat in the house. Instead, we are holding the line on 75 percent of the seats in the house.” (Also, subscribers to AMC’s premium loyalty program, Stubs A-List, can book a “preferred” seat at no extra charge.)

Because multiplex chains make most of their money from popcorn and soda, it is in their economic interest to keep ticket prices low; concession counters rely on foot traffic. But there isn’t much room to raise the price of popcorn anymore, prompting some operators to look at “creative” ticket pricing for growth.

The difference now is that the theatrical marketplace has become so difficult for certain genres that many filmmakers may have no choice. Do you want your film to be seen in theaters? Or are you fine with it going straight to streaming, where it could get lost in the digital maw? If the answer is theaters, you may have to accept a discounted price.The average movie ticket cost $11.75 in 2022, according to EntTelligence, a research firm. In New York, prices reach $28, depending on the format. A small popcorn at AMC Lincoln Square costs $10 with tax. (Fun fact: The average movie ticket price in 1969 was $1.42, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners. Adjusted for inflation, that ticket would cost $11.93 today.)

The move toward pricing complexity adds risk as theater owners look for ways to get people back into the ticket-buying habit after three pandemic-battered years. IMAX has been experimenting with live events, including concert simulcasts. Fathom Events has premiered episodes of a religious TV show, “The Chosen,” in theaters; episodes have generated $20 million at the box office since November, despite being available free online. Cinemark has comparatively little debt, but the hole for other theater companies is deep. AMC, which according to security filings has more than $5 billion in debt, said last week that it generated $990 million in the fourth quarter of last year, a 15 percent decline from 2021, and lost about $288 million. Prices may actually be going down for certain types of movies — ones that have struggled to attract ticket buyers in the streaming age, including comedies, conventional dramas and art films. Last month, theaters lowered opening-weekend prices for the octogenarian comedy “80 for Brady” to attract value-sensitive older customers. Tickets for evening screenings cost the same as a matinee, a discount of up to 30 percent, depending on the location. Some theaters offered the same deal for “A Man Called Otto,” starring Tom Hanks.“We’re hopeful that others will follow,” Mr. Aronson added, “and that this is hopefully the beginning of alternative ways of looking at pricing.” (Antitrust rules prevent studios from setting ticket prices themselves.)AMC has pushed back, noting that some European cinemas have charged a premium for prime seats for years. Yes, prices are high in New York and Los Angeles, Mr. Aron acknowledged. But he said 30 percent of A
MC customers paid less than $8 a ticket.

Wall Street responded favorably. But cinephiles had a conniption. In a column, The Chicago Tribune’s film critic, Michael Phillips, called Sightline “a bush-league pickpocket move” and “the latest tiny nail getting tap-tap-tapped into the coffin currently under construction for an entire era of filmgoing.”

Charging less for certain kinds of movies and more for others has long been a Hollywood third rail, with filmmakers panicking that it will send a message about quality. Just try telling Martin Scorsese that tickets for his next prestige drama will cost less than ones for “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”

Cinema attendance had been declining for decades, with people citing a variety of reasons for going less often: 50-inch TVs at home, streaming services, rude patrons who text on their phones when the lights go down. But the pandemic caused ticket sales to collapse in 2020 and 2021. More than 500 movie screens have closed since the start of the pandemic. Cineworld, the world’s No. 2 chain, filed for bankruptcy in September, and dozens of its Regal multiplexes in the United States have closed.“In a business where the only innovation in pricing has been to go up, this is a good first step,” said Chris Aronson, the president of domestic distribution at Paramount Pictures, which released “80 for Brady” and urged theaters to lower prices.

As they struggle in a fast-changing business, multiplex operators — some carrying astounding debt because of pandemic shutdowns — have started to experiment with pricing in ways that have startled moviegoers. AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest cinema chain, is testing “sightline” pricing, giving seats at evening screenings different costs depending on their location. (Discounts of $1 to $2 for the neck-craning front row, increases of $1 to $2 for the center middle, status quo for the rest.) Chains have also started to charge more on opening weekends for expected blockbusters like “The Batman” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” with plans to ramp up the practice. Their food prices are regularly updated and have been sourced directly from their website as well as a number of reports we have received from visitors. As you’ve seen from the above table – AMC offers a range of concessions at each of its cinema locations – focusing on keeping the movie snack staples available all the time.