Why Is It Absolute Hell to Buy a Movie Ticket Now?

The conclusion to Denis Villeneuve’s epic Dune trilogy is still four months away, but the anticipation was palpable on Tuesday, the first day of ticket presales. Theater chain apps suffered apparent outages as moviegoers waited in long virtual lines, hoping to finally glimpse a seat map with some empty spots left on it. In Manhattan, those who have grown mistrustful of this unreliable tech found time on a weekday morning to line up around the block at AMC Lincoln Square—hours before the box office opened. It was the third frenzied rush for blockbuster tickets in a few short weeks, following sky-high demand for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Destin Daniel Cretton’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Customers have been particularly keen to see these films on IMAX screens, with Dune: Part Three and The Odyssey also available in the even more exclusive IMAX 70mm format. Only 25 theaters in the US are capable of showing a film this way. While directors and studios have embraced such premium screenings for tentpole releases (not least because those tickets are more expensive), the rarity of theaters equipped for them has contributed to a scarcity mindset. People are so bent on experiencing these movies in the “best” possible way, and, if not on opening night, as soon after as possible, that ticket resellers have attempted to auction them off for hundreds of dollars, while some cinephiles have embarked on Homeric journeys to IMAX theaters multiple states away. As such, this week’s competition for Dune: Part Three tickets renewed a feeling of stress and weariness among fans of Hollywood spectacle. Why, some asked, does catching a movie now feel as difficult as scoring tickets to a red-hot concert tour? Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Theatres, took to his X account to apologize for the latest cinematic frustrations. (Reached for comment, the company directed WIRED to his comments on the platform.) “We thought we were ready, but we weren’t,” he wrote of the Dune launch, noting that the traffic surge to AMC’s website and mobile app was about triple the volume they’d seen for the latest Spider-Man installment. “It’s a high-class problem to have such staggering demand, but even so it is intolerable and inexcusable,” Aron wrote. He further announced that $2 million in IT costs had been approved in order to “fully address the issue.” Fandango and Regal Cinemas, whose apps and websites also drew complaints amid ongoing glitches, did not immediately return requests for comment. A representative for IMAX, which is not involved in ticket sales, declined to comment on the record. IMAX currently has more than 1,800 locations worldwide; in a quarterly financial update earlier this year, CEO Rich Gelfond said they saw the potential to double their footprint. This depends, however, on exhibitors actively investing in more IMAX venues, as well as the availability of new or retrofitted auditoriums big enough for the screens and the theater architecture that goes along with them. In the meantime, customer exasperation is mounting. Internet film critics bemoaned the “concertification” of movies as they contended with the same overloaded apps and long lines as everyone else. “I'm done with the shenanigans of trying to be ‘FIRST’ to see these blockbuster films,” Simone Cromer, once known for her “Club Chalamet” fan accounts devoted to Dune star Timothée Chalamet, wrote on X. “I'll watch it on a regular screen sometime that week, without having to travel too far.” Barry Hertz, film editor and chief film writer at The Globe and Mail, posted on X that vendors were failing the filmgoing public. “If you're going to turn movie ticket-buying into a competitive sport, then you need to have the tech and UX to support that shift,” he wrote. Hertz tells WIRED that “eventizing” a movie “feels like a lifeline for theaters coming out of the depths of the pandemic,” and that there’s nothing inherently wrong with them encouraging audiences to pursue “a movie in its most ideal format” as they fight to maintain their bottom line. “What can't happen, though, is theater owners forgetting that the rest of the experience has to be as easy and painless as possible,” Hertz continues. In his view, they haven’t lived up to this responsibility. “Don't add layers of technical frustration on top of a leisure activity that is fighting for its life.” Stephanie Wang, a professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh who researches behavioral economics, suggests there are also significant social dimensions at play. “Some consumers' desire for a ticket may be greater when they know both that many other people also want the ticket and cannot have it,” Wang tells WIRED. She points to an experiment published in The Review of Economic Studies in 2023 which found that “when some people are randomly excluded from being able to participate in an auction, the bids of those who are allowed to remain in the auction substantially increase.” Moreover, she adds, someone’s commitment to participating in the ultimate movie event can “signal to others, and sometimes to themselves as well, that they are true fans,” since it may “require you to give up time or sleep or something else of value.” The potential solutions, alas, are not entirely obvious. Some members of the AMC Stubs A-List membership program this week suggested that they should have priority access to tickets at those theaters. But this ignores the economic reality of the subscription plan, which costs between $27.99 and $29.99 monthly and allows viewers to see up to four movies a week at no extra charge—including in formats like IMAX 70mm, a ticket which otherwise retails at $30 or more at AMC. In other words, outside of concessions, the chain isn’t making any additional money off A-Listers attending these premium screenings; the box-office take comes from the non-members paying full price. “Of course, the classical economic question is, why don't the theaters just increase prices until supply equals demand and the market clears?” says Wang, identifying one theoretical way to cut down the secondary resale market. But, she says, theaters have reasons not to pull an audience that paid top dollar across the board. “They might want the fans who will give a rave review afterwards and spread the positive word in their social networks,” Wang explains, and those who sacrificed more for a ticket are more disposed to “believe that it's one of the best movies they have ever seen to justify the effort cost, which far exceeds the monetary cost.” More likely, the chains and vendors will have to upgrade their tech, as AMC is already planning to do, and implement other guardrails to prevent a handful of users from snapping up as many tickets as they can to sell at a significant markup. Until they figure out those fixes, it seems that the battle for the best seats in the house will continue to be a bloodbath.