The 3D cinema con

3D ticket sales have been artificially inflating the US and UK box office since 2009. I keep saying this on many websites from box office analysts and experts but they always say 2014 is a blip and everything will be better next year. But next year never comes as the studio line-ups always look impressive but rarely match up their potential or expectations.

Cinema admissions haven’t risen much in the last 10 years the rise in box office since 2009 as shown by your charts is due to the extra costs exhibitors add to ticket sales for 3D. Remove this from the box office totals and box office levels don’t look at all impressive since 2009.

3D movies rarely make more money than their 2D version even with the extra charges added for 3D. 3D is normally in the biggest screens of cinemas so whilst the 2D might be sold out in one screen the 3D is paying half full in another. Which makes no sense. Gravity last year was the only film recently that was a massive 3D to 2D release.

The Daily Telegraph did an article last week that said going to the cinema can cost up to £100 which is understandable when tickets to see 3D films my local Vue are over £20. 10 years ago the only place you would pay to see a film for over £20 was in Leicester Square.

Cinema screens are getting small while home TV screens are getting bigger using the same 4K technology that is in cinemas. It used to be that you would have to wait a year before a film would get on DVD now its 3 months. A few months ago Sony Pictures were hyping The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with a massive Leicester Square premiere a little over 3 months later its available to buy and watch in the comfort of your own home and at Christmas it will likely be on Sky Movies.

Digital Cinema has ruined the magic of the cinema and has allowed the walls to come down that separated cinema from TV. As Digital Cinema has made cinema feel like a big TV screen and we are getting the same things on our big TV screen as we do at home but at home we don’t need to pay £20 a time to do so to watch it with mobile phones going off and people talking and Tweeting through them.

Going to the cinema used to be a cheap night out now ticket prices are limiting the amount of times people go to the cinema. I used to go to the cinema about once a week now its down to half a dozen times a year. Exhibitors earn more money from confectionery sales than they do from ticket sales so if they were to reduce ticket prices more people would go to the cinema and that would increase confectionery sales so they would likely make more money from the items that they make the biggest profits on.