Care to guess how much your popcorn will cost? That’s what reader Gabriel had to do when he saw The Dark Knight the other day.
Last night, we went to see The Dark Knight at our local AMC. Since I bought the overpriced tickets, my cousin agreed to buy the overpriced snacks.
When we stepped up to the concession stand, however, we weren’t sure just how overpriced the snacks were because there were no posted prices. AMC had replaced the simple menus with fancy flatscreen tv’s. Most of the screens showed combo meals or their incredibly annoying flim-guy diving into popcorn. Where there should have been clearly labeled prices for individual products, however, there were only blank screens. The theater had turned those screens off.
Um, that’s a little shady, but they might have just been having technical difficulties. We suppose that’s one of the awesome perks of having useless flat screen tv menus.
Then again, maybe they did get tired of people skipping the combo meals to save money. Who knows? Nothing surprises us anymore, sadly.
It’s extremely difficult to report this sort of thing to AMC corporate (in our experience, they always forward the complaints back to the manager you’re complaining about), so if you want to report this, you’re probably going to have to call your department of consumer affairs, your state’s attorney general, or perhaps your local government.
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@spryte: To be specific, it was one of those chocolate Bill Knapp’s cakes. And yes, it was whole. The woman said, “But it’s my son’s birthday!” The management said no but they did hold it in the back until after her movie.
@biikman: Mr. Pibb and Red Vines? Crazy delicious!
Just out of curiousity, how long has it been AMC’s policy to search everyone (with a “wand” style metal detector) and confiscate everone’s cell phone before they’re allowed in to see a movie?
A friend of mine went to an AMC theater in Houston last night to see “Step Brothers”, and they ran the metal detector over everyone entering the theater and confiscated every cell phone (putting them in individual plastic bags and giving everyone a “claim ticket” so they could pick up their phone on the way out).
I haven’t been to an AMC in years, and if this is some new policy they have I’ll make it a point to NEVER go. I hate people talking/texting on their cell phones in the theater as much as the next guy, but a movie theater having the right to confiscate my property in order to watch a movie? No way.
Anyway, just curious how long this has been going on. There’s a couple of stories like it on Digg from late 2007 too.
@Southern: Your friend saw a special pre-screening. The production company of the film he saw paid AMC to rent out their theater for the screening. Your friend agreed to the no cell phones and search when he agreed to the pre-screening. Nothing to do with AMC.
I’m a little surprised that noone has mentioned the selection of the concessions. If I go to the theater, sit for a couple of hours, eat, well anything that the theater offers, and drink nearly a liter of soda. I generally don’t feel that well. It’s not just a ripoff, but hardly worth it at any price.
Buying snacks in a movie theater is a poor choice. Saying that the tickets to see “The Dark Knight” were overpriced is just stupid.
Wait till it comes on DVD. Its still the same movie.
I’m in Indianapolis and our Matinees are $7.
Is this The Consumerist or The Cheapskateist?
If you can afford to go to the movies then you can afford to not complain about the snack prices.
I go to the Showcase Cinema in Revere, MA. The evening tickets are $10 ($8 for matinee). I usually pay about $15 for the “2 soda, large popcorn” combo. If you’re counting your pennies enough to need to smuggle your own food in, then you may want to re-examine the expense of the tickets.
I’m going to the theater for a night out, not a stealth mission to smuggle snacks in my pockets.