I understood the quote. I used to work at a movie theater when pulp fiction came out. the first night it was there was my day off and i think i saw it around 3-4 times.

[soapbox]

it's intresting how movie houses make their money. they make over 85% of their cash on concessions. so the next time you bitch about the price of a movie remember the price is inflated because of the movie studios. for example lets take spiderman. the studio will let us "rent" the movie for $75K. of the money we collect at the box office, the movie house only gets to keep 5-10%, depends on the contract written up. the contract changes on a week to week basis. so on like the 28th week spiderman has been in the theater we get to keep a bigger % of the box. so, all in all theaters don't make much, if any, off of the movies. the only time they make money off of a movie is if it is a movie like "Pulp Fiction". Not much hype and not from a very big movie company, lets face it, Miramax was put on the map because of pulp fiction. These companies want as many theaters as possible to play their movies so they will give a bigger % of the box office take, like 15 - 25%. which means if a movie like Pulp Fiction takes off like it did, the movie house can pay back the rental fee of the movie rather quickly and begin to collect nothing but profit from the ticket sales. so the summary of my drunken rant is that if you blame moviehouses for the extreme prices of tickets ($7.50 - $10.00) don't be so quick to judge them. The reason they charge so much is because, in rare cases, they hope to break even. If you really want to support a movie house use a 2-for1 coupon or a free pass and buy popcorn and soda. because they will reap the most benefits from the concession sales.

[/soapbox]

*steps back up on soapbox*

remember theaters also "eat it" on a regular basis. I remember when we got Stewart Saves His Family. We rented the movie for around $12K - $15K. It came in on a thursday and left before saturday. lets do the math. 5 shows a day, because of matinee prices an average of $5 a ticket, an average of 4 people attending a show. that means the theater gained a total of $200 in ticket sales, but as i mentioned befor they spent $12-$15K for the movie. that means my theater just flushed $14K down the toilet. should of stayed at home and rented some movies.