DEVELOPMENT-ARGENTINA: Cheaper Cinema Seats Sure-Fire Hit at Box Office

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jan 24 1998 (IPS) - Argentina’s cinema industry finally has realised why box office returns are dwindling.

In 1984, some 64 million movie tickets were sold but, 10 years later, this had dropped to 17 million and haver remained static ever since. The reason has nothing to do with quality – but with the fact that a cinema ticket cost seven dollars. On Wednesdays, when the price of tickets is halved, cinemas are packed – regardless of what is showing.

Movie-goers here are not willing to pay a higher price to see a movie that is cheaper in the United States, Australia or Europe. In those countries, multi-screen cinema complexes offer audiences cheaper tickets every day, more comfortable seats and better sound and viewing facilities.

Now distributers like Walt Disney have gone on the offensive, showing their films for only four dollars, an offer which has attracted large audiences from the outskirts of Buenos Aires to the downtown area. Once there, they spend on candy, soft drinks and food, and later buy the “merchandise” associated with the film.

That way, selling other products hamburgers, soft drinks, popcorn, candy, toys and film souvenir the venture becomes profitable enough to justify the reduction in ticket prices. Predictions that video and cable television would draw the public away from the movies have turned out to be incorrect, as entrepreneurs lure audiences with greater satisfaction for their desires: to have a good time, to feel comfortable and to feel that one is really “inside” a world of fiction.

New digital sound systems or startling clarity have been well- received by a public that it not always willing to see the same show at home on the video cassette player.

According to statistics of the National Film Institute, there were close to 1,000 movie theaters in Argentina in the 1980s when the population was 27 million. By 1991 when the population was around 35 million, the number of cinemas was down to 342; in some cities in the provinces going to the movies disappeared completely as an entertainment and cultural option.

Even today, at most cinemas, a couple with two children must spend 28 dollars in movie tickets, plus 25 in hamburgers, french fries and sodas – if they go the whole hog on a night out – without counting travel or parking and the children will probably go home disappointed because the family budget is not enough for ice cream.

The National Institute for Statistics and Census indicates at a family of four needs at least 1,600 dollars a month to cover living expenses. Eighty dollars are for entertainment. For many families one trip to the movies, then, could be the only entertainment in thirty days.

Large film audiences are linked to a strong cultural tradition in Argentina. In the past two years, there were 65 films produced in the country, many of which won international recognition.

Since 1994, when economic stabilization began to consolidate, audiences returned to the movie theaters. The number of seats being sold at the box office is estimated to now be about 21 million per year but, to reach the numbers of 1980, all theatres must reduce their ticket prices or diversify their offerings.

The number of movies theatres has been increasing in the past six years, reaching 598 in 1997 – thanks to international chains like National Amusements, Village Roadshow and Force Corporation, which invest large sums in low-cost complexes: one operator and the same personnel covering all the studios in the one complex.

In the next two years, the business expects to see investments of 400 million dollars in 300 new theaters. The total number will then reach one thousand, as in 1980, and there will still be room for attracting more audiences. At first, investors will be content with increasing the number of spectators to 40 million at the end of the millennium.