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Donna Wiltz waits for her change after purchasing popcorn and a drink before a show at the Trail Theater on Thursday evening. Mrs. Wiltz says the Trail is always a nice place to come for an inexpensive evening.

Janice Neumann is outsmarting the box office.

With the high price of entertainment — which climbed even higher in Kansas City last week as movie tickets hit $10 at AMC theaters and popcorn went up 25 cents — Ms. Neumann cuts costs by renting videos for her family to watch at home instead of going to the theater.

“Probably for the last five years, I have hardly gone because (the price is) just so high,” Ms. Neumann said outside a St. Joseph DVD rental store.

Pamela Hoffman has a similar mind set, and her family of three averages only five trips to the cinema each year.

“I think it’s too high,” she said of the prices.

Though movie theaters are blaming corn prices, Mike Geske, president of the Missouri Corn Growers Association, said they should have little effect on both ticket and popcorn rates.

“We’re seeing this over and over,” he said. “... It defies logic, it defies common sense that there’s even a discussion about this.”

Mr. Geske said there is only about 6 cents of corn in the average bucket of movie popcorn. The price of that product is only slightly affected by corn prices. Mr. Geske said it isn’t uncommon for the price of popcorn to fluctuate wildly from year to year because it is risky to produce.

St. Joseph for now remains slightly under the $10 threshold at Hollywood Theaters in The Shoppes at North Village. A theater official, in an e-mail, said popcorn prices have increased and ticket prices have risen to $8.75 for evenings, although the price in St. Joseph was still listed at $8.50.

The Trail Theater on Ninth Street, which shows just one movie each day, charges $6 for general admission and $4 for matinees.

David Allison, general manager of the Plaza 8 movie theater, said tickets cost $2 at his establishment, but that cost is lower because Plaza 8 is a second-run theater. Plaza 8 was recently bought by the Screenland Theater chain and will reopen soon.

“Our ticket prices are not affected by corn prices at all, and I don’t think that they even are for (Screenland’s) first-run theaters,” he said.

Despite rising costs in other chains, Mr. Allison said Plaza 8 is lowering the price of concessions to draw more traffic. He said theaters see little return from movie ticket sales and make the majority of their profit from concessions.

While acknowledging an increase in prices, one popcorn company said the impact is minimal at movie theaters.

Jim Smith, sales manager of Fancy Farm Premium Popcorn in Bernie, Mo., said the company is paying twice as much for the crop compared to 2006. However, he said the cost of popcorn is only 30 cents a pound compared to the food oil used to prepare it, which runs at 90 cents a pound.

“A farmer is a businessperson,” he said. “With prices being what they are today with fuel costs and fertilizers, they’re trying to get every penny out of that acre ... We have to at least match soybeans and field corn.”

Popcorn is not the same breed of corn used for ethanol production or most food products, and besides price, Mr. Smith said farmers may decide to cultivate popcorn because of different growing seasons or to rotate crops.

To moviegoer Rob Blizzard, who said he usually gets a bucket of popcorn when he goes to a movie, the concession is already overpriced. He disagrees with raising those prices even more.

“I really think it’s a bunch of crap,” he said.