Pricing puzzle : some explanation about Why movies are priced all the same ?

As we've previously seen, it's not sure that economic rules have an explanation of the unique pricing for all movies. The prediction of the future success seems to be nearly impossible to get in advance. Studies made by Arthur de Vany, professor of economics, University of California, show that close to 78 % of the released movies are losing money (but the 22% are very profitable !). Such prediction could help in defining a tailor made pricing for each movie.

In the mid XXth century, movies were classified A, B or C depending on the (expected) quality which favoured a different pricing for each class of movie. That classification has gone...

One of the possible answer to that puzzle may be found in the fact that movies have a very short time of life expectancy : 25% of chance to last 7 or more weeks and only 15% chance to last more than 10 weeks. This rule apply whatever the kind of movie and, more important, whatever the budget spend. Implementing a differentiated pricing would give insights to customers about the expected life length and would therefore put in risk the public's judgement...

That's the best explanation I could find about this pricing puzzle !

Any other idea ?

Here are some examples of similar pricing between movies:

Pricing puzzle : Why movies are priced all the same ?

Young Indiana Jones fan puzzled by the pricing of the movie

As everybody knows, prices are, basically, the result of the law of offer and demand. But it's not always the case, as we've previously commented in the ice cream category (here) where all flavors are sold the same price whatever the cost of the raw material.

What I always found strange is that Movie theaters charge different prices depending on clients ages and time of the day or days in the week (morning and mondays are sometimes cheaper). Restaurants do the same with happy hours promotion. But when restaurants charge you different prices depending on the meal you order, Movies theater charge you the same price whatever the movie you choose to see.

That seems to be a universal rule (anyone do have a counter example ?). Same price, whatever the movie is an absolute blockbuster with millions of revenues or a total failure ; if designed for the whole family or more focused on special kind of public ; whatever the production cost they're all priced the same !

What's strange is that this do not apply to concerts or theater where, depending of the band / play differences may be huge between prices tickets. That rule also do not apply with DVDs where you also find price differences between movies (new release vs. classical of all time).

In a future post we'll try to find some explanation...