What's new

Price of a "large" popcorn at your theater? (1 Viewer)

Cory Pals

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Dec 12, 2001
Messages
71
Real Name
Cory Pals
So I take my wife out for her birthday this weekend and we do the dinner and a movie thing. The dinner was great and we had to kill a little time between that and the movie. when we go we usually get a large Popcorn and a couple of pops to snack on during the movie.

Until we saw the price of the snacks....

$5.20 for a large pop ($4.80 for a medium pop) and $7.85 for a large bag of popcorn.

And the bag wasn't even really that large.

To make matter worse the place had signs up for their "package deals" in the middle of the lobby, at the main concession stands and at their "side" concession stands and the prices were different at each place. We were still full from dinner and while popcorn would have been nice and something to chew on, we passed.

I know that theater make their money at the concession stands, but..... $7.85? Really?

My question is this: How much is popcorn at your theater? And do you think it is to much?

Cory
 

Patrick Sun

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 30, 1999
Messages
39,660
At Regal, $8 for a tub of popcorn.

At AMC, $7.50 for a "large" bag of popcorn

Free refills from each theater chain on the large size popcorn and drinks.
 

Chris Lockwood

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 21, 1999
Messages
3,215
I don't know, but it's about 20 cents a bag at the grocery store.

Is it that hard to go 2 hours without eating?
 

Malcolm R

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2002
Messages
25,141
Real Name
Malcolm
Originally Posted by Chris Lockwood [/i]) and got the medium soda/popcorn for about +/- $9. I think that worked out to about $5.50 for the popcorn (a pretty large bag) and $3.50 for the soda (32 oz). I think the large bucket of popcorn is about $6.50. This is the cheaper theater in the region and offers the best quality food, too, IMO (all independents, we have no chains in this area). The other major theater in the area is about $1 more on everything. I went to a Regal Cinema when visiting a friend out of state in October and was astounded at the food prices. I think I got the small popcorn/soda combo and it was nearly $10.

I don't so much mind the popcorn prices for some reason, but it's the soda prices that really grind my gears. Charging $5 for a cup that contains about a penny's worth of water and maybe 10 cents worth of syrup is completely ridiculous. I worked at Burger King as a youth and recall the manager saying how soda was the biggest profit driver in the restaurant as it cost just pennies a cup and we sold it for well over $1 at that time.
 

DaveF

Moderator
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2001
Messages
28,687
Location
Catfisch Cinema
Real Name
Dave
Similar here. I typically get a small popcorn for about $5.50 and a med soda for $4.50. My mental figure is it's $30 to go to the movie with my wife.

If you want more reasonable concessions pricing, you need to get studios to share more ticket revenue with the theater. Conventional wisdom is that significant portion of the theaters profits from from concessions. Most of the ticket sales go to the studios.

Or you can go to the 2nd-run theater, where tickets are $2, so you're paying almost solely for snacks.
 

Matt^Brown

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jan 11, 2005
Messages
626
The price of snacks at the theater really make it difficult to want to even go at all. I have two young boys and for tickets, drinks, and popcorn we are over $50. I really like to take them but I wish it was more affordable.
 

Mike Frezon

Moderator
Premium
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2001
Messages
60,695
Location
Rexford, NY
Originally Posted by Matt^Brown /forum/thread/295393/price-of-a-large-popcorn-at-your-theater#post_3633637
 

Paul D G

Screenwriter
Joined
Dec 25, 2001
Messages
1,914
I, personally, don't have a major issue in dropping $9 for snacks at the movie, but what floored me was this family of four in front of me recently (and the kids were quite young) dropped over $80 on snacks! When my four go the only additional cost is my wife's soda and the difference of a large popcorn - $9 to $15. The kids prefer juice so we bring our own (no one complains about their water bottles) and we all share the popcorn.

$80! A bet dinner rarely costs that much for them.
 

KeithAP

Screenwriter
Joined
Feb 4, 1999
Messages
1,236
Location
Sacramento
Real Name
Keith
While the price of snacks at the theater is quite high, the bigger problem I have is that I can't remember the last time theater popcorn tasted good. It has been mediocre at best for years.

No real butter, often times popped and bagged well ahead of time, it is just crap. If I am going to pay a premium price I want the quality to reflect that...sadly it doesn't.

-Keith
 

DaveF

Moderator
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2001
Messages
28,687
Location
Catfisch Cinema
Real Name
Dave
Originally Posted by Keith Plucker /forum/thread/295393/price-of-a-large-popcorn-at-your-theater#post_3634211
 

Edwin-S

Premium
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2000
Messages
10,000
Referring to the squirt they put on popcorn as butter is stretching the definition. The theatre in my town would charge an extra dollar if a person wanted real butter, instead of recycled axle oil. Okay, I'm kidding about the axle oil but not by much. Where I'm at, a medium drink and a bag of dried out popcorn is about 10 dollars. Extra axle oil is 50 cents.

One time, the axle oil was rancid. A small bag of popcorn was four bucks and I couldn't believe how many people wouldn't take the stuff back and complain. They were just throwing it on the floor. There was greasy popcorn everywhere. I actually took it back and told them I wanted my four bucks back. They actually tried to exchange it for a new bag. I had to tell them I wasn't interested in another bag of disgusting tasting rancid popcorn before they finally coughed up the cash.
 

Lucia Duran

Screenwriter
Joined
Sep 30, 2005
Messages
1,089
In Tucson we had a theater that actually allowed people to bring in outside food. People use to bring in pizza, burgers, falafels.... you name it. We use to go and bring our own popcorn and drinks, but never a full meal.

We rarely go to movies anymore just due to prices being so high now ($8.75 for tickets not to mention cost of snacks). I think I heard that the prices for tickets are going up to $9.25 next year, so that will make it even more of a reason to get a better home theater.
 

Walter C

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2006
Messages
2,409
Real Name
Walter
Originally Posted by Lucia Duran

We rarely go to movies anymore just due to prices being so high now ($8.75 for tickets not to mention cost of snacks). I think I heard that the prices for tickets are going up to $9.25 next year, so that will make it even more of a reason to get a better home theater.
That's the reason why I don't go anymore. I can remember when a movie ticket was at most, $6.
 

Todd H

Go Dawgs!
Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 27, 1999
Messages
2,269
Location
Georgia
Real Name
Todd
Here a large popcorn is $5-6 dollars and a large drink is $4.50. At least admission is still $5.50 although I have a feeling that will go up soon.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Forum statistics

Threads
356,815
Messages
5,123,804
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top