I've often used this in silly pseudo-proofs demonstrating that words have little to no value.

Given that a picture is worth 1000 words, a film (being a string of pictures) at 24fps is 129600 pictures in 90 minutes, and viewing a film might cost $15: a word can be rented for $0.000116 or at a rate of roughly 86 words per penny.

This also tracks well with paperback novels as 70k words would be a little over $8 and 100k words would be just under $12.

That said, I have nothing but the vaguest sense of what an average movie or book costs these days. Are movies $15? Does walmart still have the $5 bin?

What about books? I know that the last time I was in a book store I was somewhat shocked by the prices but that was years ago.

Although, the local used good probably still sells both media for $1/ea. If that's the case, there's an easy frugality argument in the 90 minute movie being worth ~130k words against most novels topping out under 100k.