Natalie Portman in "Black Swan"

Make a mental note – the next time you happen to be seeing a movie in Latvia, you might want to go with Raisinettes at the concession stand rather than popcorn.

Reports surfaced earlier this week that a 42-year-old moviegoer was shot and killed Saturday evening at a multiplex in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Police arrested a 27-year-old man and charged him with the murder.

According to witnesses, both individuals were sitting through a showing of the Oscar-nominated film “Black Swan”. During the course of the screening the suspect had argued with the deceased over how loudly he was chomping away at his popcorn. The assailant waited for the film to end before shooting the victim.

While “Black Swan” is a suspenseful, psychological thriller, it’s hard to believe that the nature of the content is to blame for the incident.

Samosas Are Popular At Mumbai Movie Theatres

In many countries around the world it is hard to think of going to the movies without the smell of popcorn wafting through the air. The salty snack is a staple for millions of moviegoers, not to mention a high margin profit center for cinema owners. But it turns out popcorn does not top the list of movie concessions in places such as Mumbai, India.

In fact, this past weekend theatre owners in Mumbai found themselves in short supply of their top selling treats – samosas.

After the recent death of a partner at A1 Samosa, the city’s top samosa supplier to cinemas, the masala delicacy went missing from concession stands. According to a story in the Times Of India, about 30,000 samosas are consumed daily in 90 cinemas throughout Mumbai.

At the popular Gaiety-Galaxy Cinemas, where an average of 2,600 samosas are sold each day, management was unprepared for the shortage. Like many theatres in Mumbai, they relied on samosa alternatives such as batata wadas, burgers and vegetable puffs. Some cinemas were able to find samosas from an alternate supplier.

By Sunday cinemas were reportedly receiving samosa shipments as scheduled, thus ending the shortage. These days the news of cinema patrons in Mumbai being forced to watch movies without their beloved samosas might not seem all that important, even in India. However, the sale of samosas were once used to measure whether a film would go on to be a box office success.

Film critic Bhawana Sommayya told the Times of India:

“The film’s status was dependent upon how much the canteen of a cinema hall made.”

This leads me to wonder if the sale of popcorn at movie theatres elsewhere in the world could ever be used as a barometer to predict a film’s box office returns. What do you think?

As if theatre owners didn’t have enough to worry about with studios shrinking release windows at every opportunity, they may soon have to start worrying about moviegoers bypassing the real bread and butter of any exhibitor’s business, or more appropriately the popcorn and butter. A new study conducted by the non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest and released earlier today reports that the food items found at most movie theatre concession stands are incredibly unhealthy. Lab tests revealed that eating a medium popcorn and soda combo from Regal Cinemas was the equivalent of eating three McDonald’s Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter. For those with a more of an interest in nutrition, that’s 1610 calories and 60 grams (three days’ worth) of saturated fat.

The CSPI report also found that the candy sold by most exhibitors is no better. An extra large box of Junior Mints contains 570 calories and 8 grams of fat. Raisinets are 420 calories and 11 grams of fat. M&Ms may be tiny but they pack in 790 calories and more than a half a day’s supply of saturated fat (16 grams). Then there’s the calorie king of all movie theatre confections, Reese’s Pieces which are loaded with 1,160 calories and 35 grams of saturated fat. To hammer the point home the study compares the intake of such candy to eating a 16-once T-bone stake with a buttered baked potato as a side order. It’s a miracle that E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’s heart was still able to glow after downing all those Reese’s Pieces in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster back in the early 1980s. The alien rightfully should’ve keeled over from a heart attack according to CSPI.

The study points a firm finger in the direction not only of Regal, the world’s largest circuit, but also AMC Theatres, the second largest theatre chain and Cinemark, the third largest exhibitor in the United States. CSPI sent samples of popcorn and soda from Regal and AMC theatres in Washington D.C. area to a lab for testing. Samples from Cinemark were collected from venues in Texas Illinois and Maryland. The organization found that each of the chains under-reports the calories served up in their popcorn. For instance, Regal claims their medium size popcorn contains 720 calories while a large size has 960. However, the tests conducted by CSPI’s lab uncovered the truth – they actually have 1,200 calories.

Faulted for the high calorie and saturated fat count was the coconut oil used to pop the corn kernels by both Regal and AMC. The canola oil used by Cinemark lowers the calorie count to between 760 and 910, but significantly decreases the saturated fat from 60 grams to no more than 4 grams. Oh, and apparently the “fake-butter” topping doesn’t help either. Regal was found to be the worst offender on the calorie and fat meter, with AMC and Cinemark coming in second and third respectively.

Ty Burr’s article on the report in the Boston Globe is a hilarious read. Honestly, I want to know who authorized such a study and how much it cost. They could have given me half the money and I could have turned the report around in a couple of hours. After all, theatre owners aren’t hiding the fact that they’re selling candy. Exactly what was CSPI expecting to find?

The LA Time’s cinema columnist ‘Projector’ has a humorous op-ed piece echoing the NATO/MPAA song that going to the cinema is still the cheapest form of entertainment. Not just compared to going to a sporting event or visiting the opera, but even compared to trips to the picture palace of yesteryear. But he doesn’t fall for the popcorn merchants propaganda hook-line and sinker:

Of course, Projector is too savvy to entirely buy the exhibitors’ assertion that movies “remain the most affordable form of out-of-home entertainment.” They never considered a brisk 5K jog around the Rose Bowl, nor open-mike poetry night at many coffeehouses.

And movie popcorn and other snacks are notoriously pricey, which explains why theaters generate roughly 20% of their revenue but 40% of their profit at the concession stand.

Ironically, the high cost of goodies helps moviegoers, according to new research from Stanford University and UC Santa Cruz, because concession revenue enables theaters to keep ticket prices in check. Projector, who only went to a state school, can’t argue with that logic.

There is even some advice for the savvier cinema goer:

Frequent filmgoers can save several hundreds of dollars a year by selecting theaters and showtimes carefully. Sure, the Rolling Stones’ concert movie “Shine a Light” is worth $15 a ticket on a large Imax screen at the AMC CityWalk Stadium 19, but if cash is tight, consider a $5 matinee of whatever is playing at the pleasant-enough, single-screen Vista Theatre in Los Feliz. Some chains also offer bulk ticket discounts, but beware of any restrictions.

If your movie is showing at the mall, you can live dangerously by smuggling in a Mrs. Fields cookie or a packet of sour gummy worms, thereby supporting a broader swath of the economy. Projector, of course, can’t condone such a potentially flagrant violation of theater policy. He’s just sayin’.

Those interested in the Stanford University and UC Santa Cruz concession revenue report can find out more here. From the press release:

The findings empirically answer the age-old question of whether it’s better to charge more for a primary product (in this case, the movie ticket) or a secondary product (the popcorn). Putting the premium on the “frill” items, it turns out, indeed opens up the possibility for price-sensitive people to see films. That means more customers coming to theaters in general, and a nice profit from those who are willing to fork it over for the Gummy Bears.

Indeed, movie exhibition houses rely on concession sales to keep their businesses viable. Although concessions account for only about 20 percent of gross revenues, they represent some 40 percent of theaters’ profits. That’s because while ticket revenues must be shared with movie distributors, 100 percent of concessions go straight into an exhibitor’s coffers.

Although if distributors could decide they would get a share of that revenue and profit as well. Equally interesting is another finding:

In another study examining Spanish theaters, the researchers discovered: Moviegoers who purchase their tickets over the Internet also tend to buy more concession items than those who purchase them at the door, by phone, at kiosks, or at ATMs (the latter option has not yet hit the United States). More research is needed to figure out why, but for now this suggests that theaters may want to be sure to partner with an Internet service to make such ticketing available–or even take the function in-house.

People who come to the movies in groups also tend to buy more popcorn, soda, and candy, Hartmann and Gil found. While this, too, merits more investigation, it may be that such groups comprise families or teenagers. “If that turns out to be the case, it may be that theaters will want to run more family- or adolescent-oriented movies to attract a more concession-buying crowd,” Hartmann says.

No surprise there either that John Fithian is arguing for more PG films. He knows which side his popcorn are butter coated on. Those wishing to download the research paper can find it in PDF form here.

Photo credit: www.mobilnews.cz/blog

Don’t eat popcorn at home, it might kill you! Better to eat your price-and-volume inflated corn kernels at your local ‘plex. At least according to this article in the Washington Post (‘Popcorn Concerns Put Work Safety Back on Agenda‘), which tells us that microwave home popcorn are coated in a chemical that can cause cancer:

Federal regulators have known since 2000 that diacetyl was suspected of increasing incidences of a disease called bronchiolitis obliterans in workers who inhaled it. The condition, now known as popcorn lung disease, causes irreversible damage to the airways.

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found links between the disease and the chemical. The problem seemed to intensify, industry experts said, after popcorn makers started using extra-buttery and theater-style popcorn in the 1990s, increasing workers’ exposure to the chemical.

Scary, isn’t it? Not that they put real butter in cinema popcorn either, mind you. But should you fall ill or choke on a popcorn you can try to sue Regal or Carmike instead of some obscure microwaved popcorn manufacturer. (Yummy popcorn photo from Clan KcKinnon’s blog)