Film industry execs urge gov’t: Help bring down movie ticket prices

MANILA, Philippines — They should be charging less, not more, to stay afloat.

Two major voices in the Philippine movie industry on Wednesday asked lawmakers to help find ways to reduce theater ticket prices in order to draw more Filipinos back to the cinema and keep local production companies viable and their talents and crews employed.

Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) chair Jose Maria “Joey” Reyes, an award-winning director and screenwriter with a body of work spanning more than four decades, raised the concern during a Senate hearing on bills establishing the National Film Commission.

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One of the three measures taken up—Senate Bill No. 479—proposes that such a body be funded by a “special film commission” tax of P2 to be levied on all movie tickets in theaters nationwide for 20 years.

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Sen. Robin Padilla, himself a movie actor before entering politics and now chair of the Senate committee on public information and mass media, asked Reyes about his views on the new tax.

“You know, senator, ticket prices should actually be reduced and not raised,” the FDCP official said.

“Don’t bother (’Wag na lang),” Reyes said of the additional P2 per ticket.

Where will P2 go?

The government, he said, can still find other sources of funding for the proposed film commission without discouraging Filipinos from trooping to the theaters.

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“Where will this P2 go? What is its purpose? Because I imagine there is actually a budget allocated for the commission … If we are saying it is for the development of the commission, etcetera, etcetera, let us just find another way. The important thing is that people go the movies, and they will do so if you lower ticket prices,” he stressed.

Another filmmaker, Carlos Siguion-Reyna, echoed Reyes’ sentiment.

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“We agree that we should find a way to stop adding to [the price] of tickets. In fact, if we can reduce it,’’ said Siguion-Reyna, who was at the Senate hearing as a member of the board of trustees of the Directors’ Guild of the Philippines.

In Metro Manila, the average movie ticket currently costs around P275 for Filipino productions and P390 to P450 for foreign films. Prices may go higher depending on the theater’s location or screening format.

Complaints in last MMFF

In December 2025, many netizens took to social media to express frustration over what they described as “excessive” ticket prices for that year’s staging of the Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF).

Jun Robles Lana, the director of one the MMFF entries, “Call Me Mother,” amplified this by noting that a family of four would need “at least 1,500” to enjoy movies together.

The MMFF is supposed to be a “people’s festival,” Lana said, but “[b]y pricing the ordinary Filipino out of the theater, the industry hasn’t just lost customers, it has lost its soul. Cinema has shifted from a shared national culture to a middle-class privilege.”

In response, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chair Romando Artes said the agency would “seriously revisit” the ticket pricing of future MMFF entries.

In February 2024, during a meeting of the Metro Manila Council on movie ticket pricing and other issues in the film industry, Reyes, also speaking for the FDCP, summed up the mounting challenge:

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“A producer needs to pay three types of taxes for each film, including 10 percent amusement tax, together with other taxes such as value-added tax and income tax, making us the mostly heavily taxed movie industry in the world.”—With a report from Inquirer Research