Post by MileySmiley08 on Mar 4, 2008 17:33:37 GMT -5
Forget Frank Sinatra. It's Hannah Montana who does it her way.
The Disney Channel schoolgirl played by Miley Cyrus moonlights as a secret-identity rock star. And when she makes a movie, she names her own ticket prices.
Admission to the 3-D "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour" is $15 — more than twice the national ticket average. The high price has helped the film shatter box office records on the way to collecting $60 million in grosses, the third-highest total this year.
The high-priced special-event movie ticket could be a sign of what's to come. Movie executives and the business world are stunned, but a University of Arizona professor saw the trend coming all along.
Barak Orbach, a professor at the UA's James E. Rogers College of Law, conducted studies with Stanford University economics professor Liran Einav and published two papers last year projecting that theaters would adopt variable pricing for movies, charging more for films that were most in demand.
The "Hannah Montana" movie, which is playing at digital 3-D-equipped theaters including Century El Con and AMC Foothills, fits in that category. It's the best of all worlds for Disney, which has everything working in its favor to make the movie worth $15 to audiences:
● The movie was filmed on the 2007 concert tour that sold out nationwide and commanded scalped ticket prices of thousands of dollars.
● The 3-D theater experience can't be matched by DVD.
● The movie's (supposedly) limited run adds a sense of urgency.
The "supposedly" applies because advertisements originally trumpeted a one-week-only engagement, but the studio has been extending its run week by week as it continues to pull in big cash.
The movie started off with a record-breaking Super Bowl weekend. Released Feb. 1, the film garnered $31.1 million in three days. Its $45,560-per-screen average in that period was the highest of any wide-release movie to date.
Now the film has garnered more than $60 million. Of that figure, $45 came from the Lopez family of Tucson.
Stay-at-home mother Claudia Lopez sent her three children — Jose, 8, Fernanda, 11, and Alejandra, 14 — to see the movie with relatives during the opening weekend.
"Well, it seemed like a lot, but they really wanted to see it," Claudia Lopez said. "They like it a lot."
Alejandra said $15 didn't seem too expensive and that she would have paid $25 to see the movie.
"I like the music," she said.
Claudia, 35, said she was happy to stay home while an aunt chaperoned her kids. She said she felt tricked when Disney extended the movie's engagement past the first week.
The price wasn't right for Kelly Houk, a teacher at Lifelong Learning Academy, who has three Hannah Montana-adoring daughters, ages 9, 11 and 13.
"My girls love her, but I don't always take them to movies," said Houk, 36. "I would never spend that kind of money. My kids probably would, but I wouldn't. I'm not too easily influenced. It gets to be over the top."
Some theaters lack 3-D tech
Kent Edwards, managing partner of Tower Theatres, said his movie house isn't playing the film because it's not yet equipped for digital 3-D. He said he's hoping to integrate the technology into his theater this year to get a piece of the next "Hannah Montana"-style box office phenomenon. Edwards believes there will be more movies worthy of $15 tickets.
"Only for special events," Edwards said. "I don't think it's going to be anything for a regular film feature."
Orbach disagrees. He thinks studios will try to emulate the demand for "Hannah."
" 'Hannah Montana' is a great one," said Orbach, who is working on the book "Reel Law: A Legal History of the American Motion Picture Industry" which Yale University Press will publish next year. "It targets the market of all these girls. They don't care how much their parents pay for the movie. When you decide whether to go to a movie, you and your partner consider the various issues, such as cost and time, and whether they're worth it.
"The best market is girls between 12 and 14, 14 and 16," he said. "They do not think about it. In that market, they go and go again to see the same movie. This is the market you want to capture."
For his studies, Orbach drew on the past, finding that theaters used variable pricing from the mid-1890s until the 1970s, and continued to do so by charging less for matinees.
Orbach said he faced fierce skepticism from academia about his findings.
"It's kind of a topic targeting academics," Orbach said. "Economists say if economies exist for a long time, they must be efficient. If it exists, we may not understand why it's efficient. It may be something we don't understand; otherwise someone would do it differently. Some were smart asses, saying 'Why don't you buy a theater and make money?' They were sarcastic and belittling."
Media boosted credibility
But Orbach said the media were more receptive, and he credited stories in newspapers, including the Arizona Daily Star and the Washington Post, for boosting his credibility among the establishment.
Orbach said premium weekend-night pricing instituted in the last couple of years, including in Tucson, was an early sign that his predictions would be correct and that the "Hannah Montana" film is a sign of things to come.
"I don't think it was such a smart point," Orbach said. "I was just the lucky one to say it first. It's straightforward. You don't charge the same price for apples and oranges."
www.azstarnet.com/business/226491
The Disney Channel schoolgirl played by Miley Cyrus moonlights as a secret-identity rock star. And when she makes a movie, she names her own ticket prices.
Admission to the 3-D "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour" is $15 — more than twice the national ticket average. The high price has helped the film shatter box office records on the way to collecting $60 million in grosses, the third-highest total this year.
The high-priced special-event movie ticket could be a sign of what's to come. Movie executives and the business world are stunned, but a University of Arizona professor saw the trend coming all along.
Barak Orbach, a professor at the UA's James E. Rogers College of Law, conducted studies with Stanford University economics professor Liran Einav and published two papers last year projecting that theaters would adopt variable pricing for movies, charging more for films that were most in demand.
The "Hannah Montana" movie, which is playing at digital 3-D-equipped theaters including Century El Con and AMC Foothills, fits in that category. It's the best of all worlds for Disney, which has everything working in its favor to make the movie worth $15 to audiences:
● The movie was filmed on the 2007 concert tour that sold out nationwide and commanded scalped ticket prices of thousands of dollars.
● The 3-D theater experience can't be matched by DVD.
● The movie's (supposedly) limited run adds a sense of urgency.
The "supposedly" applies because advertisements originally trumpeted a one-week-only engagement, but the studio has been extending its run week by week as it continues to pull in big cash.
The movie started off with a record-breaking Super Bowl weekend. Released Feb. 1, the film garnered $31.1 million in three days. Its $45,560-per-screen average in that period was the highest of any wide-release movie to date.
Now the film has garnered more than $60 million. Of that figure, $45 came from the Lopez family of Tucson.
Stay-at-home mother Claudia Lopez sent her three children — Jose, 8, Fernanda, 11, and Alejandra, 14 — to see the movie with relatives during the opening weekend.
"Well, it seemed like a lot, but they really wanted to see it," Claudia Lopez said. "They like it a lot."
Alejandra said $15 didn't seem too expensive and that she would have paid $25 to see the movie.
"I like the music," she said.
Claudia, 35, said she was happy to stay home while an aunt chaperoned her kids. She said she felt tricked when Disney extended the movie's engagement past the first week.
The price wasn't right for Kelly Houk, a teacher at Lifelong Learning Academy, who has three Hannah Montana-adoring daughters, ages 9, 11 and 13.
"My girls love her, but I don't always take them to movies," said Houk, 36. "I would never spend that kind of money. My kids probably would, but I wouldn't. I'm not too easily influenced. It gets to be over the top."
Some theaters lack 3-D tech
Kent Edwards, managing partner of Tower Theatres, said his movie house isn't playing the film because it's not yet equipped for digital 3-D. He said he's hoping to integrate the technology into his theater this year to get a piece of the next "Hannah Montana"-style box office phenomenon. Edwards believes there will be more movies worthy of $15 tickets.
"Only for special events," Edwards said. "I don't think it's going to be anything for a regular film feature."
Orbach disagrees. He thinks studios will try to emulate the demand for "Hannah."
" 'Hannah Montana' is a great one," said Orbach, who is working on the book "Reel Law: A Legal History of the American Motion Picture Industry" which Yale University Press will publish next year. "It targets the market of all these girls. They don't care how much their parents pay for the movie. When you decide whether to go to a movie, you and your partner consider the various issues, such as cost and time, and whether they're worth it.
"The best market is girls between 12 and 14, 14 and 16," he said. "They do not think about it. In that market, they go and go again to see the same movie. This is the market you want to capture."
For his studies, Orbach drew on the past, finding that theaters used variable pricing from the mid-1890s until the 1970s, and continued to do so by charging less for matinees.
Orbach said he faced fierce skepticism from academia about his findings.
"It's kind of a topic targeting academics," Orbach said. "Economists say if economies exist for a long time, they must be efficient. If it exists, we may not understand why it's efficient. It may be something we don't understand; otherwise someone would do it differently. Some were smart asses, saying 'Why don't you buy a theater and make money?' They were sarcastic and belittling."
Media boosted credibility
But Orbach said the media were more receptive, and he credited stories in newspapers, including the Arizona Daily Star and the Washington Post, for boosting his credibility among the establishment.
Orbach said premium weekend-night pricing instituted in the last couple of years, including in Tucson, was an early sign that his predictions would be correct and that the "Hannah Montana" film is a sign of things to come.
"I don't think it was such a smart point," Orbach said. "I was just the lucky one to say it first. It's straightforward. You don't charge the same price for apples and oranges."
www.azstarnet.com/business/226491
