Cinema Ticket Price To Increase 100%?

I'm sure most cinemagoers are paying around RM9 to RM12 per person per movie nowadays. That is not the only thing you have to pay when you go for a cinema show. You need to pay for the car park, the snacks to be consumed while watching the movie, the meal (lunch or dinner) to be consumed in the shopping centre and if you go with the family, guess how much would be the total cost of watching a movie shown in a cinema located in a shopping centre. Could be around RM100 for a family of four.

I would say that majority of the moviegoers would be watching foreign produced movies rather than locally produced. Reason will be basically - huge cost of production movie with famous movie stars.

How are you going to challenge such foreign produced movie then? Easy! Increase the cinema ticket price for such movies beyond the reach of the common folks. Maintain the cinema ticket price for locally produced movies and you'll get a stream of moviegoers watching locally produced movies.

That's the plan of the Malaysian Film Producers Association. Their idea of increasing the price will be detrimental to foreign produced movies, the Hollywood origin in specific, as the targetted price of RM20 will be too much to bear for many people.

Firstly, just go to the queue and see who are the current cinemagoers. Majority would be youngsters from the teenagers to the young adults. They could be watching up to four movies a month and imagine the cost of doing so by then.

Driving them away from the cinemas will drive them to get entertainment of a cheaper mode. Guess what would be the alternative then?

The local production companies are unable to wrestle / match / improve compared with the Hollywood produced movies and now, they have thought of this brilliant idea ................. kill them off by making their movies unaccessible.

Instead of raising their own standards or even increase the budget for producing a movie, they are gunning for an easier way out ................. simple minds and looking for easy money only but at the expense of moviegoers. They assumed that you will watch the locally produced movies when you have no other choice or making your choice limited.

Fortunately, Malaysian Film Development Corporation has mentioned that "it's a serious matter which involves government approval and not just the film industry people, rest assured that no decision will be taken without due consideration".

One thing for sure, the pirated dvd sellers are already ensuring that their production lines will be ready the moment the cinema ticket price is confirmed at RM20. The pirated dvds are available throughout Malaysia at a price of RM7 per movie. Compare that to a total cost of RM100 a family of four has to pay to watch a single movie, that too at the current price.

The efforts to clamp down on pirated goods would be futile after years of making in-roads.

Alternatively, Malaysians who are internet savvy will be downloading tons of Hollywood movies day in day out. Whether it's legal or not, Malaysians were left with limited choices.

Well, I'm not asking everyone to go for pirated dvds or start downloading. Definitely there will be one or two marvellous locally produced movies of which I have seen a number on my own. That's only one or two per year. That's all. If I'm going to watch one or two local movies per year (assuming I can't afford the RM20 ticket), this will cause major problems to the local cinemas.

Cinemas will start to close down, food outlets opened near the cinemas will experience lower sales, lesser people will throng the shopping centres .............. with the current world economy, we better analyse the cost and benefit analysis with lots of details first before making this decision.

Just when BIG cinema is intending to open dozens of cinemas and now this issue.

Lots of people are giving their opinions (or a piece of their mind) in a forum found in Cinema Online in particular on this same issue.
Tags: Malaysian Film Producers Association, Malaysian Film Development Corporation, Hollywood Movies, Film Industry, Malaysia Cinema, Cinema Online