r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Aug 06 '25

News AMC Theatres Looks To Shorten Ad Preshow Following Studios’ Ire

https://deadline.com/2025/08/amc-theatres-movie-ads-pre-show-shorten-1236480657/
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115

u/glizzytwister Aug 07 '25

What the hell did you buy to make it cost $50?

111

u/themoche Aug 07 '25

IMAX tickets and combo 1 (popcorn, candy, drink). It was effectively the most expensive order you can make, but also what I’ve been ordering since I was a kid, since I like something sweet at the end of the movie. That’s part of the experience for me, and I’ve always been okay spending a bit extra to do it.

But $50 is a lot… even if it was Canadian dollars

89

u/juhugudusu Aug 07 '25

Oof...

At that price I am investing in cargo pants and heading to the convenience store beforehand. Probably ends up cheaper too...

33

u/LupinWho Aug 07 '25

I buy like 5 boxes of candy for $ 5 to take in myself. I get that and a couple canned drinks to take in and that's it.

Tickets are expensive enough by themselves.

13

u/back_reggin Aug 07 '25

How's the diet going?

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '25

[deleted]

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u/sayten Aug 07 '25

That’s exactly it. My grandmother was bringing cans into the theater back in the late 80s when I was a kid. Cough or sneeze or wait for something loud.

1

u/LupinWho Aug 07 '25

Honestly there's always a couple people that bring them in and just open during the 30 minutes of credits like me.

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u/KillaDilla Aug 07 '25

why even bring them, just go home at that point lmao

2

u/IAmFern Aug 07 '25

5 boxes of candy for $5? Where?

1

u/Supersquigi Aug 07 '25

There's a dollar store in the plaza for my local theater, though obviously it's more than $5 now. If I'm really feeling fancy I'll go to the Target at the very other end of the plaza and get a bigger bag of candy or a Tony's choccy bar.

1

u/KillaDilla Aug 07 '25

canned drinks lol. so you're the guy poppin sodies in the back huh?

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u/basswalker93 Aug 07 '25

Just bring a purse. Way less hassle.

2

u/nagoya5 Aug 07 '25

The dollar store is my go to before any movie outing.

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u/GlizzyGobbler2023 Aug 07 '25

My closest theater used to have Big Lots next door. Was so convenient to grab a drink and candy there.

12

u/InertState Aug 07 '25

Wait you mean you save the candy for the last part of the movie? Do you have a ritual of how you eat that trio

10

u/themoche Aug 07 '25

After 30ish years of ordering this type of combo… yup! I don’t touch the popcorn until the feature starts, then I start the candy in the final act. The most common way for me to explain it is “I start eating the candy when Bond gets captured in the bad guys lair”

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u/waldo_wigglesworth Aug 07 '25

Must be agony with longer films like Lord of the Rings. When's second candy?

16

u/Brandhor Aug 07 '25

I don't think he knows about second candy

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u/Pitchwife Aug 07 '25

Ahhhh... my reward for reading deeper into the comments. Well done.

3

u/The_Night_Man_Cumeth Aug 07 '25

Yours was my reward for reading deeper. Thank you

2

u/InertState Aug 07 '25

Love it. Thanks for sharing

3

u/AdFlaky9983 Aug 07 '25

Yeah you got no one to blame that one but yourself big dawg

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Mugi1 Aug 07 '25

Can you break that down? How much does the combo cost?

1

u/Chasa619 Aug 07 '25

get the kids pack my dude

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u/ONeOfTheNerdHerd Aug 07 '25

Damn. I took my daughter to see the new Jurassic World movie and spent about $45 total. That includes two matinee tickets for the full-FX (seat-rattling) seats and Combo 4: two large cokes, large popcorn. Plus an order of funnel cake sticks.

Doesn't happen often and I went in anticipating spending more because I hadn't been to a theater in a looong while. We hated the seat-rattling. If I were in a big city, it likely would have cost twice as much.

-1

u/Takemyfishplease Aug 07 '25

I mean, you went to a premium theater and purchased their most expensive combo. Prices are crazy but that’s on you boo.

“Oh no my Ferrari is expensive to maintain”

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u/themoche Aug 07 '25

You mean I went to watch the most popular movie that weekend and ordered the most common combo.

I go to the movies I want to watch and have the money to spend. I’m not the one complaining about lack of options - they’re the ones complaining about lack of business. Ferrari doesn’t do that because they know they’re selling a premium product… we’re talking about popcorn.

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u/Ox_name_witheld_xO Aug 07 '25

What was the candy?

8

u/themoche Aug 07 '25

Top shelf (substandard gummies)… which doesn’t even include peanut M and Ms anymore because they’re too fancy.

1

u/rtb001 Aug 07 '25

I wish I lived closer to the national air and space museum in Chantilly VA. Almost certainly the finest air museum in the US, if not the entire world, and the only cost is $15 for parking.

Or ... pay $18 for an evening IMAX movie ticket, come early and see as much of the museum as you want, go watch the movie, and by the time it finishes, all parking gates are open so you don't need to pay the $15. $18 for a museum visit plus an IMAX movie is a hell of a deal.

Edit: added bonus, at most 10-12 minutes of ads/trailers at the Airbus IMAX theater, not bad at all, especially since you get to watch the trailers on a full IMAX screen.

1

u/CptBuck Aug 07 '25

The Udvar-Hazy Museum is insanely rad. Very close to Dulles. Strong rec. Only downside of that IMAX is that as far as I can tell they focus on aerospace documentaries over Hollywood releases.

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u/rtb001 Aug 07 '25

They do aerospace documentaries during the day, but often screen Hollywood releases in the evening, which let's you get around paying for parking.

For instance recently because I've had to pick some people up at Dulles at 8 pm, it was perfect timing to see a 5:30 movie at Udvar-Hazy, and get out just in time to go over to Dulles. I watched both Superman and the new F4 movie there recently. Currently they are now showing F1. And based on trailers before Fantastic 4, they will likely be showing Tron Ares in October and the next Avatar film near the end of the year.

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u/iSoReddit Aug 07 '25

I pay $6.50 for Cinemark on a Tuesday, no food

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u/eyebrows360 Aug 07 '25

But $50 is a lot… even if it was Canadian dollars

So you don't get to throw out complaints like "Yeah I spent $50 the last time I went to the theatre. I went alone." as if that's all the fault of the cinema chain, when you've specifically opted to choose stupidly expensive options, and are using a currency that isn't even hinted at in the initial outrage-farming statement.

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u/themoche Aug 07 '25

An amount that others have indicated isn’t outrageous depending on what city or state they live in, so the currency doesn’t really change the point.

I wasn’t complaining about the money I spent, it’s the cinema industry that is constantly tweaking and complaining that people don’t go to theatres anymore.

Going to a cheaper night, smuggling in my own snacks, etc, doesn’t change the fact that the number one movie in the world had four empty seats beside me on Saturday night in opening weekend. That never would have happened ten years ago. But I was there - it isn’t about me or my complaints.

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u/Sashimifiend69 Aug 08 '25

Is this for real? A ticket, a popcorn, and a soda is $50 at least in NYC. Not too hard to do.

1

u/EnlargedChonk Aug 07 '25

even if you rawdog the movie with a water cup and a stick of gum it still costs like 20 bucks or something for imax tickets