AMC to Ticketmaster: hold my beer

One of the last bastions of theatrical exhibition says let's make seeing a movie *more* shitty, not less

Guys, you live on this planet with me¹— you’re already more than aware that the world is getting actively worse all the time, in ways environmental (climate change), existential (ChatGPT), and everything in-between (George Santos). We are accustomed at this point to bad news that makes us feel helpless, pawns to a system that not only doesn’t serve us anymore but might be actively breaking down in front of our eyes. It’s cool and rad and we should all feel lucky!

Not one to miss a trend, AMC Theaters announced this morning that they will soon be introducing variable pricing to their seat selection, requiring moviegoers to select between three different seating options any time they see a movie. Drawing straight from the dystopian jargon playbook of classics like ‘Brave New World’ and ‘1984’, AMC is calling this new initiative “Sightline.” Here’s how it works:

• Those great seats in the middle of the auditorium, the ones any sane person would want and for the past ten years of reserved seating have gone to whoever purchases tickets first (not a bad system!) — those are now “Preferred” Sightline seats, and cost $2 more than they had to this point.

• Next up is “Standard” Sightline, your Joe Schmo/hoi polloi seating, flanking the 1%ers in Preferred. Sure, you’re not getting a primo spot, you’re arcing left or right to see what M3GAN is doing, but you’re not charged more. You’ve broken even!

• And last and definitely least is our Kirkland Signature seating: “Value” Sightline, the very front row, where for $2 cheaper than usual you can watch three hours of James Cameron’s ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ and then afterward put the money you saved toward a neck re-alignment.

For those visual learners out there, here’s what this seating chart looks like:

Aside from the fact that what you’re looking at is a borderline hateful abdication of color composition, it also strikes me as an ominous bellwether of things to come. Am I almost entirely ignorant about running a business, or the economy, or Wall Street, or why eggs cost so much now? Yes. In the words of noted cinematic character Forrest Gump, “I am not a smart man.” But I DO recognize corporate non-speak when I hear it. Here’s AMC VP Eliot Hamlisch:

“Sightline at AMC more closely aligns AMC’s seat pricing approach to that of many other entertainment venues, offering experienced-based pricing and another way for moviegoers to find value at the movies. While every seat at AMC delivers an amazing moviegoing experience, we know there are some moviegoers who prioritize their specific seat and others who prioritize value moviegoing. Sightline at AMC accommodates both sentiments to help ensure that our guests have more control over their experience, so that every trip to an AMC is a great one.”

“Experienced-based pricing”? The term makes sense when you consider the difference between, say, a regular and IMAX 3D screening, which are indeed very different experiences. But the implication that people are somehow looking for different “experiences” within the same movie? Give me a break. And on the “value moviegoing” kick — we all understand the concept of matinee pricing, or discount days (which AMC already does, on Tuesdays, for AMC Premiere members such as myself). That’s value. To suggest that anyone but sugar-addled eight-year-olds have ever wanted to sit in the front row is just being deliberately fucking dumb.

All of which is to say that at a time when theaters are staring down their own mortality, with audiences already looking for excuses to stay home, further alienating them by turning theaters into the American Airlines queue probably isn’t going to inspire renewed brand loyalty! If your whole goal is staving off the extinction of the moviegoing experience? To put it in Gen-Z terms, that ain’t it, chief.

I’m almost mortified by how mad this has all made me². But like any good therapist will tell you, underneath that anger is sadness — in this case at what feels like an attack on one of our last democratic entertainment options. Broadway got cost-prohibitive decades ago. Professional sports? Concert-going? Forget about it. But…

…they’ve forever been an equalizing — and screw it, humanizing — force. Rich, poor, you paid the same ticket price and fought for the same seats all to have the same experience, which is to say 90 minutes watching ‘A Man Called Otto’ in shared rapture. Who you are outside? Doesn’t matter! In this holy temple, everyone is just a fan along for the ride. (I guess it’s sort of like the subway in that sense, and with just as many smells.)

I don’t think Eliot Hamlisch or any of the AMC decision-makers care one way or another; they’re businesspeople trying to turn a profit who, gun to their head, would probably say “they’re a fan of a lot of different genres” when asked to name their favorite movie. But in an era where corporations seem almost suicidally bent on efficiency and optimization (aka robot shit!) it’s worth stopping and acknowledging what we had, and maybe finding ways to hold onto it — possibly at Regal Cinemas or Alamo Drafthouse.

1. I mean, I assume

2. so much so that I was inspired to Substack about it