The year was 2004 and the city was Chicago. Me and my roommates were getting ready for a new Telugu movie premiere show. My roommate was pointing out that it is unfair to have a ticket price of 15$ for such an old single screen theater while AMC was showing Hollywood movies in a much better theater for 10$ or less. I was a proud fan of that hero and replied, “we are fans and we will spend that money happily. It is so worth it. ”

I am so sorry for that.

Cut to 2024, AMC and Cinemark still show much movies like Avengers and Oppenheimers for under 10$ on a standard screen. While Telugu and Tamil cinema have more than doubled the prices for all Hero driven movies. Also now the same 2 to 3 times price is maintained for the entire first week. Earlier it was only for premiere shows. The same day, the next shows were at 10$ in 2004. Do not get me wrong, I understand basic economics and also made my peace with the fact that movies made of exorbitant budgets like Bahubali or Kalki need three times the ticket price to recover the cost and help encourage the filmmakers to think outside the box and make Telugu Cinema great. Also if it was one such movie every 3 or 4 years it was fine too. Now every hero driven movie or recent hit director movie or some CGI used movie ticket prices start at $25 for the first one week irrespective of the budgets.

Yes, all movies of all big heroes, which we have around 9+ in Telugu and 3+ in Tamil and all hit directors , which we have 4+ in Telugu and 3 in Tamil, have ticket prices ranging from $25 to $40 for the first one week, Thursday to Thursday. Let’s do the math, This costs around $500-600 per person in a year just to watch these movies. Add to that, we movie lovers will want to watch “chinna cinema but manchi cinema” like 35 or Matthuvadalara etc too because “Good cinema should always survive.” And then if you are a family person, the total movie watching cost per family in a year is costing a paycheck on an average. To quantify, it means around 3000$ for a person making 100K.

Now the question is how do we solve this? Should only a hero fans watch their favorite hero movies in theaters? All other hero fans wait for OTTs, which is a maximum 30 days from release. Or will there ever be a stand from Telugu Cinema folks on this issue? Yes the collection numbers will come down but the hero fans should understand that it is only to help ourselves. Do not be like me from 2004 and set a bad precedent by seeking false prestige in outrageous ticket prices to showoff your favorite hero movie collections.

– Rohit
Telugu Commercial Cinema’s biggest fan