This past summer in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a fan screening of Superman, limited only to Amazon Prime subscribers, was completely sold out. As of this writing, the Monday night subtitled screening of Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution—which is less a movie and more a compilation of the anime’s second season, combined with a sneak peak of season three—is currently half sold out in Greensboro, North Carolina, of all places, despite the fact that it can all be seen streaming on Crunchyroll.
Nationwide box office receipts for hits like Zootopia 2, Wicked: For Good, Sinners, and A Minecraft Movie suggest that these are not random examples. All across the country, people go to movie theaters, not just in Manhattan and other urban locales.
If Sarandos has any case, it’s in terms of economics and not distance. Even in these not-so-major metropolises, tickets run from $10 to $15 dollars a piece. Add in popcorn and sodas, and a family night out to Zootopia 2 can run nearly $100 dollars. But, then again, so does seeing the local hockey or baseball teams (not NHL or MLB level, I assure you), and a round of mini-golf or bowling isn’t going to be much cheaper, even if you run through McDonald’s first for dinner.
Of course, all of us not in the rarified walking distance to theaters that Sarandos talks about know that you just grab some snacks at Meijer before going to the theater instead of buying them at the theaters (just be nice to the staff and it isn’t a problem, especially if you clean up after yourself, which you should be doing anyway!). Subscription services such as Regal Unlimited and AMC A-List make the price even easier to deal with.
Which isn’t something one can say about Netflix. The ad-supported version of Netflix starts at $7.99, but the standard version of the service runs $17.99 a month, while the premium version, which allows streaming in 4K, costs $24.99 a month. If you want to add users to the account (no more password sharing!) that runs from $6.99 to $8.99 a month extra. And these are just the latest prices, which went up in January of 2025—less than six months after the previous price hike.
It’s those numbers that truly undercut Sarandos’ claim. Those prices aren’t “consumer friendly,” nor is the streamer’s tendency to raise its prices without actually improving the experience. It’s just a business trying to get as much money as it can. So when Sarandos talks about the needs of the audience, as he did in an announcement regarding the Warner Bros. acquisition (via Deadline), no one should be confused.
