Popcorn Driving Up Movie Tickets

Audiences filling movie seats for summer blockbuster releases will find more surprises than what they see on the screens - there'll be unexpected discoveries at the ticket counter as well.

Because of the inflating cost of popcorn, the price of movie tickets is expected to skyrocket by as much as 30 percent this year, according to University of Santa Cruz economist Ricard Gil. He told Advertising Age that, thanks to higher ethanol demand and the rising costs of paper, "You're going to see a one- to two-dollar increase in the price of a movie ticket... And that's being conservative."

Roughly 25 percent of the price of admission is subsidized by popcorn, soda and candy sales. Higher ticket prices will hit independent theaters harder, where concession sales typically account for 40 percent of revenue. It's bad news for the film industry all around, which, as Word of Mouth highlighted in its summer movie preview on Thursday, is spending a record 150 million dollars in marketing some of its newest flicks.

(Photo by Sharyn Morrow)