They don't have to pay extra. They pay the same amount for one unit of (watch event, time) that everyone else does.

The family of 7 also doesn't pay less.

Even as a single person, $30 sounds cheap for the movies with the expense of travel to the theater, ticket prices, snacks, etc.

But you can watch many movies for free on your cable or whatever Netflix you are already paying for.

So is this specific movie "$30" more valuable than any free alternative? Or is it the "newness" you are paying for? Have you7 watched all other movies worth watching already?

I would guess that people are (or were) paying extra to go to a theater because of the spectacular large screen and the experience in general. One feature of going to a theater is that you have to watch the movie in one sitting and there are no ad-breaks. That can add to the totality of the experience. And it's fun to get out of your house and to do that you need a reason .

Matinee showings tend to be around $6-8. $5 of snacks and per-mile total costs of around $0.40/mile, for a 10-mile round trip, still only bring that up to around $15-17.

I like to think I live in a pretty affordable city and that just sounds insane to me. I can find $5 matinees of old movies on slow days but a new release will still cost me $12/ticket and $18/ticket on weekends. As for snacks I looked and the theater is currently running a special for $10 popcorn and a drink combo.

A $10 popcorn and drink special. $18.00 dollar tickets.

That sounds like a very poor cost/value.

A sporting event, visit to a zoo offers so much more at that price point.

Plus an hour of travel/prep time.

And matinee is cheap because it's an inconvenient time.

City matters. I lived in middle GA, matinee showings were $8 or so. And a theater had all-day matinee prices on Tuesdays (including for 3D and IMAX showings), so I saw a lot of movies on Tuesday evenings. But go north to Atlanta, and ticket prices pretty much doubled and you did not get a better theater experience for it.

Also, $5 snacks sounds like the cheapest snack they had. If you bought popcorn, it started at $6 or $8 for the small, even in middle GA.

Well talk about beer in a hockey or football match

Hmmm, I spy an opportunity for Amazon to use their home drones to offer discounted prices if there's ever only one person watching.

No easy way to charge per viewer, so they gotta price it once-sized-fits-all.

They can share with friends