Jason, a 23-year-old reporter living in San Francisco, found himself in a conundrum earlier this week.
He had purchased tickets for one of the highly anticipated screenings of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster “Oppenheimer” at the AMC Metreon, just one of a few theaters in the country to be showing it in 70mm IMAX, the way the director said it was intended to be seen.
But Jason realized he was double-booked. He had already promised his girlfriend he would see Alicia Keys with her in Oakland on the same night.
“I was kind of frantically looking to reschedule for this IMAX format,” said Jason, who requested SFGATE use only his first name for anonymity and was granted it in accordance with Hearst’s ethics policy. “The marketing and everything said it was the best way to experience it. But all of the screenings were fully booked up.”
He wasn’t sure what to do with the pair of tickets, and he didn’t want them to go to waste. The day before the movie, a question popped into his mind: How much were they going for on Craigslist?
“I was pretty surprised when I saw the price points people were either selling or trying to buy tickets for,” he said. “It was hovering around $100 on average.”
Jason figured he could make something out of his missed opportunity and listed his own tickets at $50 each — almost quadruple what he had originally purchased them for at a discounted Tuesday rate of $13 each. Within 10 minutes, he received a couple of emails from people asking for more information on the seats. And over the course of the afternoon, his girlfriend helped him field requests from seven or eight other interested buyers.
He ultimately sold the tickets within four hours. (In the end, the man who purchased the tickets haggled the price down to $40 each.)
“It’s probably going to fund dinner before the concert tonight,” Jason said with a chuckle.
On Wednesday morning, there were at least 18 active posts on the San Francisco Bay Area Craigslist from people trying to either buy or sell tickets for the film, which is nearly sold out for the next few weeks and debuted at $80.5 million in its opening weekend.
Some of the hopeful buyers were still offering up to $100 to see the movie. “Looking for a single ticket to any Oppenheimer 70mm IMAX showing at AMC Metreon. Ideally middle of row L but any decent seat will do,” one post read.
Another post from a possible buyer offered as much as $150 for a pair of unclaimed tickets.
“Looking for 2 Oppenheimer tickets for 70mm IMAX at Metreon any day any time,” the post read, which included a Photoshopped image of star Cillian Murphy accompanied by glittering dollar signs. “Will pay over retail up to $150+ for good seats and date.”
The trend isn’t specific to San Francisco. A tweet went viral last week showing one Craigslist ad selling eight tickets at AMC Lincoln Square 13 in New York City for $1,400 altogether, as Decider first reported. They appeared to have sold — the post has since been removed.
On Tuesday, a manager at the AMC Metreon told SFGATE the theater had added more morning screenings of the film to accommodate for the high demand but declined to comment on moviegoers reselling tickets at increased rates. A corporate representative for AMC did not respond to SFGATE by time of publication.
The biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist known as the father of the atomic bomb, also stars Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon and Florence Pugh. It’s showing in 70mm IMAX in just 19 theaters nationwide.
“The sharpness and the clarity and the depth of the image is unparalleled,” Nolan told the Associated Press in June. “The headline, for me, is by shooting on IMAX 70mm film, you’re really letting the screen disappear. You’re getting a feeling of 3D without the glasses… You’re filling the peripheral vision of the audience. You’re immersing them in the world of the film.”
In a separate interview with the New York Times, Nolan called out several IMAX theaters that would bring his vision to life, specifically referencing the AMC Metreon’s “wonderfully huge screen.”
Jason said he still hopes he gets his chance to see “Oppenheimer” on the big screen. He even considered driving 60 miles to Dublin, the only other IMAX theater in the Bay Area that was showing it in 70mm.
“I was pretty disappointed to see the next IMAX movie replacing it is going to be ‘Blue Beetle,’ which I’m not looking forward to,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes.”
SFGATE culture editor Dan Gentile contributed to this report.