The National Alliance of Theatre Owners (NATO) released the average ticket price for the first quarter of 2018 on Monday, reporting an average of $9.16 cents.
This is an increase of 19 cents from 2017’s annual average of $8.97, and a 32 cent increase year-over-year from the Q1 2017 average of $8.84.
The previous quarter began with strong holdover performance from two Christmas releases: “Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle,” which grossed $233.5 million in Q1, and “The Greatest Showman,” which grossed $122.8 million in Q1 en route to passing “La La Land” on the domestic box office charts.
But the quarter was defined by Marvel’s “Black Panther,” which accounted for 22 percent of the $2.85 billion total gross in Q1 with $647.8 million. It is one of only six films to earn an opening weekend of over $200 million, and with a running domestic gross of $688 million, is close to becoming only the third film to gross $700 million domestically without inflation adjustment.