The problem that most people dont understand is that the theatres WOULD probably do that. As you say more butts in the seats means more concessions. However the way that pricing works in theatres is a direct result on the way the industry runs it. (from a previous post I did)

Take a movie that is coming out that you know will be hot. When I was involved in the industry we had Jurassic Park part II coming out. Theatres negotiate with distributors to get the movie. In the San Francisco Bay Area one company gave 100% of ticket take for the first four weeks of the run!! This is actually quite common.

The rest goes on to a sliding scale. Where as in week one the theater gives 80% of the ticket revenue, in week two and three it will drop to 70%, and so on. The longer a movie is out the less of a take is made by the distributors. That is why dicount houses can charge 2.00-3.00 and still sometimes come out with more profit. The only time a theatre is making huge ticket price profit is when a movie has legs or picks up as it plays. Forrest Gump is an example here. Or sometimes after an academy award a movie will get a nice bump like with Amadeus.

Now as to prices. A lot of the high ticket prices is fueled by the industry. Say you own theater A and have a price of 8 with a 5 first matinee. Brings your total average ticket price with discounts, seniors, etc to say 6.75. Then take theater B who charges 10.75 , etc with an average ticket price of say 9.50. If you are the distributor who gets the movie? Especially when you factor in the higher opening percentages?

Also many times theatre companies will negoatiate a price for ALL of their locations or for entire areas. AVG ticket price takes into account the regions. That is why you see similar prices among an entire region and by a company.

So the problem is a system like you would like to do above would pretty much guarantee your theater would not get any of the "big" movies and they would go to the competition. In big markets there is a lot of screens and a lot of negotiating to get the films on yours. so I still maintain that the pricing problem is a product of the distribution system for movies and until the movie industry overhauls THIS the theatres really have their hands tied.

I just saw it, liked it and told them it was the worst movie I've ever seen and got my money back! Fuck you Ron Howard!

I think, they should bring back the double features after the first month of its released. That will get me to the theatres more often.

Hmm, might have to check it out (I expect it to be terrible).