What was Amazon's rental prices prior to COVID-19 shutting theaters?
I am not much of a movie watcher, so I'm not looking at Amazon much to rent/stream movies.
A friend told me that Amazon just jacked up the price on first-run movies like Emma and The Invisible Man to $19.99 after the theaters started closing. I looked, and that's the current price.
But was Amazon renting first-run movies in the $4-$6 range prior to this? It seems unlikely to me, but I thought I'd ask.
Best Answer
You couldn’t rent first-run movies through Amazon before COVID-19 shut theaters.
Amazon would rent movies that had already hit the rental market for between $2.99 and $5.99, depending on how recently the movie was in theaters. I just checked, Amazon still charges $5.99 for Parasite, the exact same amount I paid when I rented it through them 6 weeks ago.
With theaters closing, the big studios still wanted a way to show their movies, so they brought them to the rental market sooner and they’re charging substantially more because the movie should still be in theaters and charged $19.99 to stay closer to movie ticket prices. (They may have some data that says something like 1.8 people on average watch a movie streamed through Amazon, and that’s why they charge more than the price of 1 ticket, but I don’t know for sure.)
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