I had friends who worked in a local theater and we hung out there quite a bit. The manager was locally famous for instructing employees to turn a blind eye to "lurkers" because "If you stay in a movie theater that long, you're gonna be hungry and thirsty eventually".

Turns out that the rental on the reels was so high that the ticket sales themselves were basically a break even proposition. $7 popcorn and $4 sodas are a completely different story.