Go to the movies today and you could be faced with quite a bill. Let's say that for her birthday, you've decided to treat your best friend to a movie and snacks. She wants to see either "Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties," "Superman Returns" or "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." You're not a huge cat fan, but superheroes and pirates are good. She likes Orlando Bloom and you like action, so pirates it is. You pick the 6:45 show, so you've just missed the matinee cutoff. The tickets cost $8.25 each. If you had made the matinee, it would have been $6.00 per ticket, instead. But you're not complaining. You got an e-mail yesterday from your cousin in New York City. He recommended the pirate movie, saying it's a great movie for guys and girls alike. And, he told you he had to pay $10.25 to see it!

Tickets, check. Now you need food. You didn't have time to grab anything earlier, so you're both starving. But you're almost out of cash. What are you going to do? Your friend sees you eyeing the prices and offers to get the candy and her own soda, if you take care of the popcorn and your drink. No wonder your friendship survives the gender gap!

Why does going to the movies cost so much?

You settle into your stadium-style seats, dead center in the theater, snacks in hand. You're ready for the movie to begin. As you sit there watching the pre-movie ads, you start to wonder, "Why does this all cost so much?" The tickets totaled $16.50. The snacks were even more, totaling $17.00. Your evening has cost more than many new release DVDs. In fact, you might even be able to get two DVDs for what you spent. Why do movies cost so much? Why do concessions cost so much? And, where does all that money go?

When considering the cost of going to the movies, there are two main things to consider -- the movie studio and the movie theater. While movie theaters do make some of their money from ticket sales, it's the movie studios that get the lion's share of that money. This means much of a theater's income has to come from concessions. But why is that? Let's take a look at the path a film takes to get to a movie screen at your local multiplex to find out.