If American movie-theater owners have been super hardcore about one thing, it’s ticket prices. No matter what the Europeans and Canadians do, no matter how many startups try to hack into ticket pricing, exhibitors for years have refused to budge.

Until now.

The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) announced Tuesday that it’s launching an off-night ticket-discount experiment sometime this year. But rather than dive in, they’re carefully dipping a toe: Only one state, which hasn't yet been revealed, will host the program, and it will run only for a limited time.

It's hardly a full-scale ticket-price surrender, but it’s still a notable concession. Theaters have been uniformly steadfast in their stance against ticket discounting; they’re fine to honor coupons and membership points for popcorn and Junior Mints, but if the sign on the box office says $14.95, it’s gonna be $14.95, from sea to shining sea.

That’s largely because studios are promised a hard cut of each ticket; any discount would slice directly into the theaters’ take. Startups like Groupon and MoviePass, which set out to offer unlimited moviegoing for $50 a month, have tried to break through. But they’ve had only limited success, largely withering in the face of intense exhibitor and studio pressure.

NATO Chief John Fithian announced the plan at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, where hundreds of movie-theater owners — from major chains like AMC to mom-and-pop venues — rub elbows with the Hollywood studios’ elite once a year. But what’s meant to be a love-fest has, in recent years, become an incubator for tension. Issues of shrinking theatrical windows (the period of time between opening day and digital homevideo release), studios’ secret premium VOD — and now discounting — have clouded the air at Caesar’s Palace.

Fithian stressed that exhibitors in other countries have buoyed their bottom lines with weeknight discounts, but Hollywood has held fast to the old chestnut that doing so devalues movie tickets across the board. Let people spin the turnstiles for six or eight bucks on Tuesday, the thinking goes, and they’ll be less likely to pay $15 or more on Friday.

Box-office grosses seem to soar to new heights year after year, but actual ticket sales have been flat or in slight decline, with ticket prices and premium formats (3D and IMAX) inflating revenues.

Though the exhibition community likes to repeatedly say the sky’s not falling, it looks like some are ready to at least get out their umbrellas.