Theater Owners Won’t Raise Ticket Prices For “The Hobbit”

For now, theater owners won’t raise ticket prices for the latest and greatest innovation–48 frames per second movies.

Of course, they could since the first movie being shot and shown this way is the highly anticipated return to Middle Earth, The Hobbit.

Warner Brothers says that the decision to charge a higher ticket price for the new frame rate is ultimately up to individual theater owners, but sources within the studio say they don’t believe there will be a hike in ticket prices.   However, there could be an individual theater or two that does decide to raise the ticket price.

Of course, that’s assuming you can find a 48 fps showing in your area.  The new way of shooting and showing movies isn’t expected to have a huge rollout in December when Bilbo and company come to a theater near you.  This first round is expected to have a limited release in certain big cities across the United States.

So while you may not have to pay a higher ticket price, you may have to pay more in gas to get to a theater showing the 48 fps version of The Hobbit.

Director Peter Jackson himself has insisted all along that that he did not expect to see higher ticket prices at theaters using the new technology, telling The Hollywood Reporter in April when he previewed some 48 fps footage of the film at CinemaCon that, “There is no intention that I have heard to charge more.”

In Jackson’s view, high frame rates are important for exhibition. “As an industry there is a certain amount of trouble that we are in; kids seem to think watching a movie on an iPad is an okay think to do,” he said. “Advocating that we have to stick with what we know [24 fps] I think is a slightly narrow mined way of looking at things when as an industry we are facing declining audiences. We have to find ways to make it more vibrant, more immersive  – something that will encourage people to come back to the theaters for that experience.”

Still, theater owners will have to invest in some technology to show the movie at 48 fps.

The Hobbit will be the first major motion picture to be made and released at 48 fps, and the  CinemaCon preview of about ten minutes of unfinished footage from the film triggered an aesthetic debate about the option. Champions of the format—including James Cameron, who plans to make his Avatarsequels at high frame rates—say it makes imagery more lifelike and 3D more comfortable to watch. Critics argue that it looks like “video.”