Despite movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen pulling in bags of cash, the movie industry isn’t exactly raking in as much cash as it used to. Blame it on too many sequels or just an overall downturn in the economy, but people aren’t shelling out their weekend spending money a night at the movies as often.
AMC Theaters is taking the logical step in attracting people to see more movies — no, they’re not lowering ticket prices, don’t be silly. They’re installing fully reclining seats. Variety noted that the the new seats will be 36% wider — with two chairs occupying 5 feet compared with the current 3-feet-8 inches. The chain is looking to remodel 5,000 of its U.S. auditoriums, about a third of all its theaters in the coming months.
The bigger seats mean fewer paying customers in the audience, but AMC’s chief executive Gerry Lopez says the company has already seen an attendance rise of 80% in the 37 theaters already remodeled. Some of the theaters will also have dine-in facilities with the goal being to have people spend their entire evening at the theater.
Movie theaters moving towards a more posh movie experience have been gaining popularity in recent years, trading soft drinks and pretzels for wine and spring rolls. If you’ve ever been to one, they are a very different movie experience than the standard sticky floor and squeaky seats of the movie theaters from your youth. They’re also of course a lot more expensive. Can AMC’s reclining seats and dine-in restaurant get people regularly going back to the theaters the way that they used to, though? Probably not if every other movie is another sequel or reboot, but time will tell.