Are you not entertained ... by our movie-related indicators?

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0:11This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Darian Woods. And I'm Waylon Wong. Waylon, I've got a story for you. Ooh, story time. Okay. Once upon a time, there was a producer who loved movies very much. Mmm. He decided to make a whole week-long podcast series about it. Wait a second. That sounds familiar. His name? Simply Angel Carreras. We have not received any hate letters. I have not been publicly crucified. so I think we have succeeded with flying colors. Yay! You said head letters to Indicator at NPR.org. Please don't do that. No, no. My ego is so fragile. Angel Correra says, enter the chat.

0:54Welcome to the show, Angel. So nice to see you guys and be here. And you are here just in time for Indicators of the Week. Consider me a Mexican Charlie Chaplin with a tiny little bowler cap. I'm tipping it to you because we are capping off movie week with a film-related Indicators of the Week. Today on the show, why one film is letting you reserve tickets one year in advance, why entertainment costs are going down, and how L.A. might be cutting back on the red tape when it comes to making movies there. All that coming up after 30 minutes of trailers.

1:32Support for this podcast and the following message come from Mint Mobile. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no hidden fees. Plans start at$15 a month. Make the switch at mintmobile.com slash indicator. That's mintmobile.com slash indicator. Upfront payment of$45 required, equivalent to$15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. This message comes from LPL Financial. What if you could have more control over your future? LPL Financial removes the things holding you back and provides the services to push you forward.

2:16Because when it comes to your finances, your business, your future, LPL Financial believes the only question should be, what if you could? LPL Financial, member FINRA SIPC. No strategy assures success or protects against loss. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. We're back from the break. Darian, what is your indicator? My movie indicator is negative 0.3%. And that's how much the price of movie tickets, plus concert and theater tickets, went down between May and June. Whoa, deflation in the fun industry. Yeah, this is a happier number for moviegoers. And it was in this week's Consumer Price Index release, the big inflation report.

2:58It's part of a wider trend of discretionary spending dropping in price. If you watch movies at home, streaming prices were flat, and in travel, hotel and motel rooms cost less. Airline fares were cheaper. It's like a 21-air horn salute, but positive, right? This is good? Not so fast, Angel. It's early days. Overall, this month's inflation report showed prices are up in other areas. So you've got food prices rising, appliances costing more, toys are getting costlier. Overall, the year's inflation grew to 2.7 percent, and that is higher than the Fed would like it at 2 percent. And all those things you talked about, food, appliances, toys, I mean, they're all affected by tariffs, right?

3:42Is that the common thread? Yeah, the long-anticipated price increases because of tariffs are emerging. It's still not earth-shattering at this point, but, you know, the snake's head has turned. We've gone from disinflation to rising inflation again. Well, at least we have cheap movies to comfort us. They're not affected by tariffs, right? Right. Well, no tariffs yet, but remember President Trump was threatening tariffs on foreign-made movies back in May? Nothing's really happened there yet, but anything is possible. But to your point, Angel, tariffs may be playing a role in this, but kind of in the opposite way.

4:19as tariffs jack up the price of barbecues or tomatoes from overseas, we find other things to cut back on. And so one theory is perhaps at the box office, that means that cinema owners might be lowering their ticket prices to lure in more customers. Well, congratulations, Darian. You've turned movie ticket joy into a ha-ha-ha-ha horror film. I like an emotional arc in my plot lines. Oh, boy. Speaking of plot lines, someone who usually has positive plot lines, And Waylon Wong, what is your indicator of the week? My indicator is five. That's the number of members on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

4:56And this week, these five board members unanimously passed a motion aimed at cutting red tape for film and TV production in L.A. It's the latest move by government officials in California to revive Hollywood's flagship business. So people shooting away from Hollywood was an episode that we did as part of our film series. and we talked about how filmmakers are getting tax credits to shoot in other states and other countries. That's right. And so there's been a big push by folks in Hollywood to make Los Angeles a more hospitable place for film and TV production. And these L.A. County supervisors are tackling one issue that filmmakers have complained about, and that's red tape and permitting.

5:35So we interviewed a director named Aaron Moorhead for our film series, and he talked about how frustrating all the permitting stuff can be. It is an absolute headache to permit in Los Angeles. All right, let's say you want to shoot in your house for five days. It's$800 just to apply, and they might say no. And that's just your house. Like if you need parking, you know, if you need to take over another little area. And if you apply for a sixth day, that starts a new week, and it's another$800. And I think it's more than$800. The permit application fee is actually over$900 right now. Wait, why do I need a permit to shoot in my own house?

6:10You have to pay for just the application to shoot in your own house. And they might say, no, you can't shoot in your own house. And so how is this process changing in L.A.? Well, nothing's changing quite yet. This is government after all. They have passed a motion to review the permitting process. So we're still, I think, a few steps away from some concrete changes. The wheels of government, they turn so slowly. I know. It's not very cinematic, right? Like the scene of the supervisor sitting around saying, we should have a review. At least a meeting about meetings. But, you know, these moves are important to filmmakers like Aaron.

6:46He told us that this recent conversation around permitting is actually the first time he's ever heard it discussed publicly since he got into the business. It all gets revealed on the indicator. Now, speaking of revelations, Angel, tell me about your indicator. Oh, no. I fear another immortal weaves a snare to trap me, urging me to abandon ship. I won't. Not yet. That's really good, Angel. That's a quote from Odysseus from Homer's The Odyssey. I thought it was a sea captain from The Simpsons. I mean, listen, we are talking about Homer's The Odyssey. Oh! But anyways, yesterday I tried to defy the reservation gods.

7:31I tried to grapple them and put them in a headlock and get a ticket to Christopher Nolan's cinematic take on The Odyssey. But I did not get a ticket. Wait a minute, but that's not coming out for a whole year. Yes, it is coming out a year from now. And that is my indicator. 365. That is the amount of days in advance. You could have reserved a big format ticket to this movie, The Odyssey, featuring Tom Holland and various handsome men. Honestly, I'm so excited. Okay, so, I mean, is this just a publicity stunt to have reservations so far in advance? Well, I mean, it's not a publicity stunt. The demand was there.

8:06And, yeah, it's bizarre to have reservations a year in advance, but, I mean, most films have you queuing up much closer to release. Warner Brothers, for instance, their quarter-billion-dollar high-flyer Superman, for example, had reservations only a month out. And that's Superman, dude. What is it about Nolan? Well, I mean, like, these movies, specifically Christopher Nolan's movies, They're like an event. You could put anything on IMAX these days, like Marvel's Thunderbolts or Joker Foil-le-Due. But I don't know, do these have audiences' trust? Not as much as Christopher Nolan. Hashtag cinephiles, the letterboxed bros, they just respond to his work.

8:42Some have crossed state lines just to see his stuff in IMAX, 70mm IMAX as well. Right, he's the guy that reignited the Batman franchise that brought in a couple of billion dollars. Yeah, it's kind of crazy that just like a name alone can make nearly a billion dollars on a movie that has nothing to do with anything with any pre-existing IP. Like, you know, Inception. That hovered around$800 million worldwide. Oh, wow. One of my favorite movies ever. Yes, yes. When it comes to Christopher Nolan, he's always dreaming bigger, darling. That's my androgynous impression. Tom Hardy, is that you? You know, while theaters are doing so many things to bring people back, whether it's kind of weird popcorn vessels, dune bucket, 50 % off days, maybe that's part of the ticket deflation-darian, theater owners and audiences will always want to go to an odyssey with one, Christopher Nolan.

9:33If we're going to do an indicator odyssey week of movie-related episodes, I will trust you, Angel Carreras. Oh, brother, where are they? I'm trying to think of other odyssey... You know they call him the Mexican Charlie Chaplin? You are the hero we deserve, Angel. Thank you. And we also need to thank the producer of this episode, Cooper Katz McKim with engineers Debbie Daughtry and Catherine Silver. This episode was fact-checked by Julia Ritchie. Cake and Cannon is our editor. The Indicator is a production of NPR. Hey you listener, we've got another episode for the movie series, a special treat on Sunday when Darian, Adrian and I are going to battle it out on business movie trivia.

10:15So stay alert, that's coming in your feed on Sunday.

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