And you thought $12 was a lot for a movie ticket ...
If this year's Oscar show seemed a bit dull on TV, at least you didn't pay $85,000 to watch it in person. That's apparently what each of five tickets to the event sold for through a ticket broker (including three to people in Denmark). Charging that much is not only excessive but illegal, according to a lawsuit filed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The approximately 3,300 tickets for Hollywood's biggest awards ceremony are either free to nominees, presenters and honored guests or sold to members of the academy, said attorney David W. Quinto. Ticket holders are prohibited from selling their tickets, but sometimes the dollars being offered to rub shoulders with Hollywood stars (or more likely the relative of a sound engineer) is too hard to resist.
It's not clear how the academy, which wants all the money from the ticket sales, determined that the buyers of the $85,000 tickets were from Denmark. But after this year's show, it might be a good bet that they will be watching from Copenhagen next year.
-- Jesus Sanchez
Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
