Would you pay $20 for a movie ticket?

A major movie milestone was almost upon us, according to The Wall Street Journal, which broke the news today that movie ticket prices will reach $20 this weekend. And then moviegoers across an uneasy nation breathed a collective sigh of relief when soon after, the Associated Press broke the news that it was a mistake.

The owners of AMC told the AP that the $20 adult ticket price for an IMAX viewing of Shrek Forever After at some Manhattan movie theaters was an error, and that anyone who purchased the tickets for that price can have the difference refunded.

Still, a $20 movie ticket seems inevitable. Currently, on average, whether you live suburban Minneapolis or downtown Los Angeles, you're going to pay $17 for an adult ticket to an IMAX 3D movie.

And in any case, tickets are apparently going up yet again. As we reported in March, they had climbed 8.3% for regular 3D movie prices and 10% for IMAX 3D films -- well, according to The Los Angeles Times, theaters are nonetheless raising their Imax 3D prices again, this time by another 2.3% for adults and 2.8% for kids. If you noticed, that's not a misprint -- a kid's ticket is climbing higher than the adult's, a trend that, if it continues, might someday mean that a child's ticket won't be any less than a grown up.