Would you go to the movies more if tickets cost less?

"Yes, absolutely," said Sarah Galvin. "We go twice a month, we'd go every single weekend."

Ms. Galvin had shown up to see 'Captain America: The First Avenger,' in 3-D, at the AMC Santa Monica 7 theater here on Wednesday. She had a little one in tow, in superhero costume. Adult tickets were $15.75, children's, $12.75. "It costs so much," Ms. Galvin said.

After years of grumbling about steadily rising ticket prices, consumers achieved the nearly unthinkable earlier this year: they forced a momentary drop in the average cost of a movie ticket, to $7.86 in the first quarter, down from $8.01 in the fourth quarter of last year, partly by opting out of costly 3-D tickets for movies like 'Mars Needs Moms,' and watching films in cheaper 2-D.

But prices started rising again this summer. In a conference call with investors on Thursday, executives of the Regal Entertainment Group, the nation's largest theater chain, predicted the usual average price increase of 3 percent or more across the industry by year's end.

If so, it will be the 17th consecutive annual increase in a business whose prices have outpaced the effect of general inflation by more than half since 1999. Theater attendance has fallen by about 10 percent in that period, or even more when measured as a share of the growing population.

Executives from Hollywood's major studios are generally reluctant to discuss prices. But with domestic box office down 5.55 percent - to $6.42 billion from $6.80 billion - from last year at this time, according to Hollywood.com, even some of the best-compensated players are beginning to wonder whether exhibitors and studios are pushing their luck with consumers.

Historically, the big theater chains like Regal, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark Theatres and Carmike or their predecessors have been reluctant to raise ticket prices because their profit margins were higher on the sale of popcorn and other concessions than from tickets. Thus, they had an interest in raising the number of attendees, rather than maximizing film revenue that would be shared with studios.

The industrywide average ticket price - which factors in low-price small-town theaters, second-run houses and discount sales through outlets like Costco - can appear impossibly low to urban dwellers, who are accustomed to paying far more at theaters in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, where real estate is expensive and zoning laws can require, for instance, a lobby as large as the auditorium, to avoid lines on the street.

In some markets, too, pricing changes have caused surprising distortions. In Santa Monica, for instance, the price of a regular adult ticket at AMC Loews Broadway 4 theater, also owned by AMC, has risen by 47 percent since 2001, to $11.75 from $8 - only a little more than the 41 percent increase in the average ticket price for the same years. But children's tickets rose 67 percent for the period, to $8.75 from $5.25, while senior tickets are up 95 percent, to $10.75 from $5.50. Add 3-D, and a child's ticket goes to $12.75, while a senior pays $14.75, two to three times the cost of a ticket 10 years ago.

Plans for new theater construction in Santa Monica have been held back by a regulatory review and the need to resolve zoning issues.

Though generally well tended, the Santa Monica 7 theater is showing its age. Here and there, the wallpaper is cracked or a piece of trim is missing, and the basement level, where 'Captain America' was showing on Wednesday in a large 3-D auditorium, had a distinctly musty smell.

As for Ms. Galvin, she just wished the tickets were a little cheaper. "I'd bring my husband," she said.