Depends on the theater. The big name theaters which have effectively been taken over by AMC Entertainment, I'll agree with that assessment. The small-town theaters with owners who don't own more than five locations often have better deals and reasonable refill prices.

The difference: when a movie will be playing. Most smaller movie theaters won't even show half of the films that were shown in the larger theaters (otherwise I would've driven 20 minutes to the local theater to watch my first movies of the year) instead of making an hour commute.