What We Complain About When We Complain About Popcorn

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 7, 2012 10:20PM

We know getting snacks at the movie theater is absurdly expensive. We know that it is terrible for you. But is selling a mediocre product at an inflated price really something you can sue over? (And has anybody thought about what such a precedent would mean for the Ricketts family?)

Michigan filmgoer and would-be Soda Pop Spartacus Joshua Thompson thought so, and so did his lawyer: they're hoping to force AMC theaters of Livonia to refunding customers for charging excessive prices for their expensive Raisinets and popcorn. While some smarty pants law professor calls this suit a "loser," the rest of America is surely behind him. That the price Thompson paid for a coke and a package of Goobers ($8) actually seems sort of reasonable to us indicates we have been too beaten-down by this system. After his case is thrown out, we hope he runs for President as the nominee of the "Goobers are Too Damn High" Party.

Now some might argue that the high price of concessions is the only thing keeping the theaters afloat. They insist that as much as 85 percent of movie theaters' profits come from concessions, that they often lose money on admissions, and that profit margins for theaters are often very, very slim.

Movie exhibitors may be getting squeezed by shorter release windows (meaning that streaming and on-demand video, DVD, Blu-Ray, and downloads of movies are released sooner and sooner) and studios see almost all the ticket receipts for the first week's movies that are in theaters, but that doesn't mean we should be charged $4.75 for a measly 1,160 calories of Reese's Pieces. It may cost $8 for a small macrobrew at a Bears game, but there are trace amounts of alcohol in that. Unless we are permitted to let our Gummi Bears ferment, we should not have to pay more for them than for all the candy we hand out on Halloween night.

Granted, ticket prices might go up closer to the $20 range. More insufferable infotainment might be forced on us before the the lights even go down. A few more commercials for consumer products might ruin whatever enjoyment of movie trailers we once believed we possessed.

And yes, some theaters aren't going to be able to replace the profit potential of a concession landscape where $30 worth of uncooked popcorn can be transformed into $3,000 simply by popping it a few yards from where Project X is playing, and are going to turn in the towel.

But we will have won a great victory of the best sort, a consumer victory, and will have forever silenced a million armchair Andy Rooneys to boot.

We say: Down with Big Popcorn.