In our current era of big corporations price-gouging customers with glee, it’s hard to come by something that feels like a genuine deal.
And frankly, when you find a particularly special deal, it’s hard not to want to keep it to yourself. But you, dear readers, are my friends, so I’ll hip you to it.
In the middle of 2021, pre-omicron but post-vaccination, I was very excited to return to a movie theater. Home streaming releases and library Blu-Rays can only get a man so far, you know? After a masked-up test run with the Bob Odenkirk action movie “Nobody,” I pegged “A Quiet Place: Part II” at Reel Cinemas as the first return movie in a “normal time.” I was only free to see the movie on a Tuesday night, and as I pulled out my debit card, ready to swipe on a ticket I presumed would be $47 or something similarly dreadful, I saw the total — $6.50.
This would be the first in a long, continuous infatuation with what Reel Cinemas calls “Tightwad Tuesday,” wherein tickets are $6.50 for any movie, all day. Pre-pandemic, Tuesday was usually the day when theaters charged slightly less for movies, but I assumed that it would leave and never return, especially considering the dismal returns theaters experienced in 2020.
To be clear, I absolutely loathe the expression “Tightwad Tuesday” for several reasons. It makes customers question their love for a deal, as if it’s our fault that money is tight in most sectors of modern life right now. Secondly … despite the alliteration, the word “tightwad” is just not pleasant to say or look at. Even now, as I shoehorn the word “tightwad” in more time, I can feel your faces scrunching up in displeasure.
But name notwithstanding, it’s been a joy to take in both blockbusters and some smaller releases, the good and the very bad, all for a meager price. I loved taking in movies like “The Green Knight” and “Candyman,” knowing that I was experiencing films that deserved a gigantic theater screen. And in the case of ho-hum movies such as “Black Widow” and “Halloween Kills,” I still left marginally happier than I would have had I paid the regular $13.25 to enter.
According to various online sources, the last time I paid for a regular ticket at this price, it was 2007 and I was seeing “Spider-Man 3.” Now, it’s 2022, and I can see a new “Spider-Man 3” for the same price, 15 years later! That’s what we used to call progress in this country.
For a long time, not only would I pay less than half price, I’d also be greeted by a nearly empty theater to enjoy the movie in. I would assume that the owners of Reel Cinemas probably weren’t jazzed about this, but I sure was. At least once, I would stand up as a movie ended and make accidental eye contact with the one other person in the theater during a showing. In those moments, I tried to make sure my face had a look that said, “Look at us! Why isn’t anyone else taking advantage of this deal?”
Well, good things always bubble to the top at some point. At the beginning of March, I made plans with my cousin Patrick to catch a showing of “The Batman.” I had long since turned him into a “Tightwad Tuesday” convert, and reader, we were careless. We didn’t buy tickets in advance, because it was a Tuesday, right? We’d get our pick of the seats and really stretch out for all 180 minutes of Robert “Battinson’s” performance, right? Wrong. By the time we arrived, the only seats left were way up front, and no human neck is designed for the sheer amount of craning the movie would require.
Fearing that all was lost, we Hail Mary’ed for another theater showing the movie in the same time slot. That was the day that I learned that Penn Cinema quietly also jumped back into the Tuesday game, offering tickets for $7 with the still-alliterative but less-gross moniker “Ticket Tuesday.” Barring special events and screenings, I hope to never pay in the double-digits for a movie ticket again, even if it means convincing friends to forgo their Tuesday evening plans of watching TV or looking at their phones (“Trade the small screen for a big screen!” I’ll say).
It’s important to note here that it is crucial to also support theaters that take chances on movies that may not be able to offer these sort of deep discounts, Zoetropolis in Lancaster city being chief among them. When it comes down to it, I’ll more than likely pay whatever price within reason if I want to see the movie badly enough. But as a former disciple of the gone-but-apparently-soon-to-return Moviepass system, if you make it cheaper, I will be there far more often.
This all being said, tickets could be $1.70 like they were half a century ago, and I still would never see “Morbius.”
“Unscripted” is a weekly entertainment column produced by a rotating team of writers.
