1. It's extremely difficult to determine which movies are "good" and which are "crap" until they're already in theatres. The best minds in the business routinel

1. It's extremely difficult to determine which movies are "good" and which are "crap" until they're already in theatres. The best minds in the business routinely mis-judge the quality and popularity of films. 2. Individual theatres are mostly interested in selling popcorn. They just want to fill as many seats as possible, pricing tickets at just-above break-even. Since their costs to show "good" first-run movies are about the same as "bad," it makes no difference to them. (They do, however, do capacity planning, allocating more screens to movies expected to draw larger audiences.) 3. The movie industry actually had variable pricing based on production costs, back in the day. ("A", "B", and "C" movies.) It didn't work then, either. Plenty of flop "A" musicals and hit "B" comedies/westerns. Robert McKenzie goes on about this at length in his book, "Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies." I have crudely summarized his chapter on this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Why-Popcorn-Costs-Much-Movies/dp/0387769994/ http://www.amazon.com/Why-Popcorn-Costs-Much-Movies/dp/03877...