MoviePass Adds a Million Subscribers, Even If Theaters Aren’t Sold on It

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/business/media/moviepass-theaters-tickets.html

by dankohn1 • 9 years ago

80 124 9 years ago

exabrial2• 9 years ago

Better movies would help theaters out too... CGI still looks like CGI, even in 2017 it's pretty easy to identify a CGI helicopter or explosion. Then there's the eternal topic of throwing violence and sex scenes at the consumer in an attempt to spice up a mundane plot... when all that's needed is a better plot.

wmeredith2• 9 years ago

The problem with "better movies" is it's totally subjective-film is art. For instance, I'd argue that the current quality of cinema has never been better. It's a mature medium with several mature distribution channels and the barriers to entry have never been lower. Some of the indie films that get produced these days are incredible. And the spectacle offered by blockbusters is truly breathtaking. Sure, there's a lot of bad movies released on both ends of the budget spectrum, but that has always been true.

The theater experience on the other hand, is getting less and less appealing as home audio/video tech continues to improve at a furious pace.

exabrial2• 9 years ago

Agree, it's always subjective; I didn't mean to imply that art is in any form deterministic. The items I criticized are things a general audience groans about movies both indie and blockbusters. I can think of a few recent examples that were good and bad. For instance, the plot in "Valerian" was fairly well done because there was a tension between the two main characters that we wanted to see resolved, despite the plot jumping around a bit from scene to scene. The plot in "Atomic Blonde" also jumped around, but there was no cohesion overall and the sex and violence scenes that followed were a yawn-inducing attempt to keep the viewer interested. I shut it off without finishing it and I haven't wondered how the movie ended. I love spy movies, and was hoping for another well-baked plot like "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit".

To your last point, none of those movies I watched in a theater, I waited until they were released to my online video service and I could watch from the comfort of my couch.

Thinking a bit more, I had low hopes for "Valerian" and "Jack Ryan", and high hopes for "Atomic Blonde", even though those turned out to be the opposite in reality. To my original point, I think that what killed the theater experience for me. I'm afraid to go spend $15 on a movie that _might_ suck. I'd rather spend half that and be able to leave if it's terrible.

Shivetya• 9 years ago

Damn if the article doesn't reek of being just one big advertisement for the service. It is written as if the theaters have no choice in the face of consumers wanting unrealistically cheap tickets.

A service with such an unrealistic price per month that it should be impossible to lose subscribers and be just as impossible to be sustainable once early investor money dries up. It just reminds me of the worst of the early internet businesses, mainly all the grocery delivery attempts and now boutique dinner delivery services

all the theater chains need to do is wait it out, count their money from all these effectively free patrons, and then launch their own if desired version. T

j1vms• 9 years ago

and then launch their own if desired version.

If that's what happens in the worst case, then that would be a significant change in the business model of theaters/theater chains - and by extension, the movie industry.

And that is possibly the worst case now. Keep in mind the data this company is collecting from their subscribers could be used to help smaller theaters fill their seats at the expense of attendance at larger chains.

cmiles744• 9 years ago

If theaters launched their own service, it would be one service per theater. If you lived in an area with more than one chain, you'd either subscribe to both or only go to one theater chain. Or, more likely, eventually grow dissatisfied with the service and cancel.

MoviePass is definitely making things easier for the consumer. One subscription, any theater at any time.

Spivak• 9 years ago

I think the value-add of 'you can go to any theater' is a tough sell. If the theater that I frequent offered a subscription that was any amount less than MP I would probably switch. Why would I drive further to see a movie?

taoistextremist3• 9 years ago

theaters have no choice in the face of consumers wanting unrealistically cheap tickets.

It's hardly unrealistic. If theaters are wondering why they have so much trouble filling seats, they can look to this mode of thinking. Theaters (save for maybe some chains around me like MJR and Emagine) don't seem to understand how markets work. They've been raising the prices continuously and wondering why their sales have dropped, without giving much justification for those raised costs (the theaters I mentioned either typically sell cheaper than others in the case of MJR, or they have very high-end experiences in the case of Emagine).

AMC, since they've been the most vocal opponent to moviepass, are terribly guilty of this. The only reason I use their theaters is either because it's close to me (I live less than a mile away from one), or because my friends want to go to one for whatever reason. They're always terribly maintained, it looks like their staff doesn't care to clean, I can hear noise, including intelligible dialog, from other movies while watching mine, and their concession price gouging is some of the worst.

If they want to start getting people back in theaters, they need to either deliver a better experience or severely lower their prices, though probably both.

BEEdwards• 9 years ago

I'm still not sure how this company makes money or how they make the theaters money.

So they sell tickets for way under what they cost, they take their cut and pass it on to the theater and studio, and then claim money somehow that simply putting butts in seats is their value add.

It just doesn't make sense.

landonxjames• 9 years ago

I've always heard that theaters make the majority of their profit on everything besides the ticket since most of that goes back to the distributors/studios. So I would imagine more butts in seats == more overpriced popcorn sold and potentially more profit.

wmeredith2• 9 years ago

Putting butts in seats is a value add. It sells overpriced snacks, which has been the actual profit center for theaters for a couple decades now.

beisner• 9 years ago

Butts in seats is a huge value add if those butts are buying concessions.

cyberpunk0• 9 years ago

What the hell buys concessions in 2017? I don't know a single person throughout my entire life who doesn't just bringing something in from outside.

thefreeman• 9 years ago

The only thing I can think is that they assume they will make the money back in concessions. That plus the "gym membership" situation where you keep it because you want to know you have it but often go long periods of time without using it.

berdon• 9 years ago

I had assumed the theater wasn't a part of the exchange and that MoviePass is merely making money on the percentage of people that don't go to 1/2 movies in a month. If too many people do, they can up the price per month. With this approach, movie theaters don't know what's happening, can't prevent it (it's a normal ticket purchase), and, most importantly, don't care because they're still filling seats and getting concession monies.

londons_explore• 9 years ago

Why do AMC care so much then?

Perhaps they're worried that people will switch to movie pass, and then Movie pass will fail in a few years, and those subscribers will then stop going to the cinema entirely?

perfmode• 9 years ago

IMHO, it looks like a data play.

cmiles744• 9 years ago

I do think that they will have compelling data to sell. They will have a lot of demographic information that the theaters don't have access to (age, distance traveled to theater, some income information, etc.) as well as what movie and what time.

I'm not sure how much data the theaters can gather from credit card ticket purchases, I would expect they glean nearly no data at all from cash purchases. I suspect they are trying to fill in these blanks with the goofy phone apps they are aggressively pushing.

In my opinion, MoviePass can likely sell a lot of this data back to to the companies that produce the films as well as the theater chains themselves.

shawndellysse2• 9 years ago

they sell tickets for way under what they cost, they take their cut and pass it on to the theater

That's not how it works. You select a specific movie in a specific theater in their app, it loads the exact amount on to the moviepass mastercard, and then you purchase the ticket with the mastercard. The theater gets the full ticket price.

They claim they're going to be harvesting the data from their customers and sell that to make a profit. I personally think it's a red herring, if I were in their shoes I'd aggressively undercut the price, secure a dominant market position, and then place pressure on chains to play ball, or raise the price of the subscription in small increments ala Netflix. Honestly, it'll probably be a combination of both.

This all can sound a bit nefarious but at the same time I don't see the movie theater industry surviving without some sort of subscription model such as this. AMC, Regal, and Cinemark are squandering their market dominance by not implementing some sort of similar plan for their own specific chain (cinemark's $8.99/mo plan isn't even comprable).

delinka• 9 years ago

"...I'd aggressively undercut the price"

Aren't they? For $10/mo, I can go see one movie a day, no additional cost to me. And it's not the theater chains that need convincing- it's the studios. The theaters just aren't permitted to take any sizable percentage of the ticket price.

If anything, "butts in seats" shows demand. If demand drives prices, then the studios think the prices can go up because demand is up. If MoviePass's plan is to profit from data, I personally don't have faith in their future.

solatic2• 9 years ago

Consumer psychology.

Instead of $10 a month think of it as $120 a year. If a theater charges $12 a ticket (just to pull a round yet realistic number that means less than a movie a month at $10/month) then an annualized MoviePass subscription breaks even at 10 tickets per year.

As somebody who likes to go to the movies, how many times did you go to a theater this year, really? Six, seven times maybe? Maybe once in the late winter or spring, two or three times in the summer, once in the fall, whatever Star Wars movie comes out in the winter, maybe another time with your family during the holidays?

The truth is that people don't really change their media consumption habits, in aggregate, when they're presented with unlimited subscriptions. People just like to feel like they could get anything they want and that they don't have to look at the price tag anymore, but they don't actually consume more in aggregate. Sure, you get some binge subscribers who exploit the system, but they're not enough to bring down the entire enterprise.

If the industry could transition from $10/album to $10/month unlimited music subscriptions, from $10 eBooks to $10/month Kindle Unlimited eBook subscriptions, from $10 DVDs (actually, usually more than that) to $10/month Netflix subscriptions, then why can't the industry support a transition from $10 movie tickets to $10/month theater subscriptions?

adjkant3• 9 years ago

For me, I certainly have changed my habits, because if movies are free, I am willing to see a lot more of them. Most movies aren't worth seeing in theatres for the previous price point with the exceptions you more or less listed. The lower one makes it worth it for me. I've seen 13 movies in the past 4 months. I would have seen maybe 5 or less otherwise. At my ticket price (which is actually around $12 a ticket), even without changing my habits, I would have still saved money at 4. I know too many college students like myself thriving off this.

cvsh• 9 years ago

Sure, you get some binge subscribers who exploit the system, but they're not enough to bring down the entire enterprise.

Especially for movie theaters, where the marginal cost of additional filmgoers isn't as high.

If I watch a second Netflix movie, Netflix has to spend 2x as much on bandwidth to serve it to me.

If I theater hop, the theater doesn't really have to spend anything more. The only cost to the theater is the opportunity cost of me not paying to see a movie I otherwise would have paid to see.

In other words, as long as the MoviePass subscription cost is higher than the opportunity cost of losing the average moviegoer's ticket revenue, then everyone wins. In fact, the theater probably really, REALLY wins because the more often I'm at the theater, the more often I have a chance to buy concessions.

hn_throwaway_99• 9 years ago

Your analysis doesn't make sense to me, for a couple reasons:

1. You claim that unlimited subscriptions doesn't change behavior in aggregate, but do you have any evidence for this? Just look at Netflix - it has changed tons of people's behavior to watch more TV on Netflix than other entertainmentt options.

2. Your other examples of music subscriptions, eBooks, Netflix etc. aren't relevant because the economics are totally different. MoviePass is still paying full price for each movie. Spotify certainly isn't paying some sort of "full price" for each song you listen to. It seems like MoviePass would be most attractive to those who are most likely to take advantage of being able to watch tons of movies.

I agree with other commenters, I think MoviePass is trying to get mind share and heft so it can then be in a good negotiating position with theaters. That is, if you get a couple of theater chains to come on and agree to better economics with the subscription model, then consumers may start only going to MoviePass-supported theaters, putting MoviePass in a much stronger negotiating position.

empath75• 9 years ago

This is literally just a 'money in a box' subscription.

You're paying $10 a month for $20+ a month. Of course subscriptions are going through the roof. It's free money.

I think if you wanted to make a blue apron level unicorn, just selling a subscription for a $20 bill in an envelope every month for $10/month would give you a better user growth story with lower churn rates and customer acquisition costs than this.

daodedickinson• 9 years ago

You just gotta make sure you get the $20 from someone you detest and then you have $10 profit.

moheeb• 9 years ago

If I owned a candy company I'd invest in this company big time!

imgabe• 9 years ago

I've been thinking of getting this. I typically go to the movies when they're otherwise empty or at least not very crowded, weekday afternoons or early shows on the weekend. For the theater this would otherwise be an empty, wasted seat. Something is bound to be better than nothing.

Outside of Friday/Saturday night, shows are pretty unlikely to be sold out.

Plus, if you're at the theater, you'll buy popcorn, candy, and drinks, which is where the actual theater makes most of their money.

11thEarlOfMar• 9 years ago

I've been trying to recreate the movie experience at my house for decades: Large screen high definition display, high-end surround sound, etc. but it just does not work. Daylight, phones ringing, kids playing, dryer buzzer, and myriad distractions diminish the experience and I'm always left with notion that it's never as enjoyable at home.

Theaters will always have a place in entertainment. And with the recent addition of la-z-boy furniture and reserved seating, there's simply no contest. Now, I want to experience all my favorite films in the communal environment of a theater. Would be great to be able to 'upvote' classic films and have them play at a local house, and watch along with others who like it enough to be there, place and time. Maybe that's where MoviePass is headed?

friedButter• 9 years ago

Would be great to be able to 'upvote' classic films and have them play at a local house, and watch along with others who like it enough to be there, place and time

A theater chain in India is trying something similar, though at full price and not discounted like moviepass

http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-techno...

bobcostas55• 9 years ago

This exists in the UK: ourscreen.com. Seems to work well.

gnopgnip• 9 years ago

If you are in the Bay Area Alameda Theatre does this on Wednesdays. New Parkway does it from time to time also. Both are covered by Moviepass.

evanb• 9 years ago

New Parkway also screens episodes of MST3K, it's quite a fun audience.

joefourier• 9 years ago

If you have a dedicated home theatre in your house with a projector, sound system, blocked windows, noiseproofing and plushy seats, and treat it just like you would going to the movies - mute phones, have the kids sit quietly (or be out of the house), you can get an experience equal or superior to most cinemas.

txsh• 9 years ago

Thank you. I never understand why people complain as if good parenting isn't an option.

tarboreus2• 9 years ago

Does it have to be a solstice or can you also do it on Leap Day?

ggg9990• 9 years ago

For me, getting out of the house is half the fun.

owaislone• 9 years ago

Except in some countries where movies are forcibly split into 2 and people are forced take a 10 minute break. Plus people compete with each other on who can make the loudest sounds while chewing their popcorn, burgers or gums. As someone who has misophonia or misophonia like symptoms, going to movies can be a daunting experience at times.

mikewhy2• 9 years ago

Theatres here still have kids and cellphones going off.

Combined with ushers walking up and down the aisle, people scooching by to go to the restroom, employees checking the emergency exits at the side of the screen and there's no clear winner.

There's still some movies I want to experience on the big screen, with insane audio, and D-BOX seats.

But for the most part movies at home still win due to the ability to pause and agoraphobia.

BoorishBears• 9 years ago

I've only watched about 5 movies in the last 2 years, but 3 out of those 5 were completely empty, 1 was packed and somewhat noisy, and the other was full but silent (but my experience might also be skewed because the theatre within walking distance of my apartment was not that kid friendly being in a restaurant/bar district downtown and serving alcohol on premise.

chrismcb• 9 years ago

Movie ushers? What century was the last time you visited the theatre? I go to a lot of movies, and outside of a couple of special events, I've never seen an usher in the theater. Yes, cell phones and it's might be an issue, but they are fairly rare. Unless you can built a $100k theatre room, there is definitely a clear winner. But if course it isn't for everyone.

dawnerd• 9 years ago

Apart of the employees Checking every 30ish minutes my local regal is nothing but respectful people. Helps that there’s room to walk down the aisle with the seats fully reclined and they only hold about 100 people max. I’ve been going way more since I got moviepass

deadmetheny• 9 years ago

Alamo Drafthouse theaters show about as many special screenings of classic films as they do new features, and they've been expanding a lot the last couple years. If you're close to one, they're worth checking out.

ringaroundthetx• 9 years ago

Moviepass is great on the low cost aspect of the movie experience

But on the other hand I would pay $50+ for that kind of entertainment. I enjoy the experience as it isnt tolerable to have such overpowering speakers in a home setup, or especially in apartment complexes. It is a well done escape.

I wouldnt pay that much for a movie-going date or children’s tickets though, with the high chance that they arent into it

IronWolve• 9 years ago

phones ringing, kids playing ... myriad distractions diminish the experience ...

This is how my trip to the movie theaters have been going, local IMAX had people coughing, loud food eaters, kids talking, people surfing phones.

The looking for parking, waiting in line, the annoyance of people.

I'd rather just rent/buy the blueray.

joshstrange• 9 years ago

No offense but I think you are doing it wrong if you can't recreate the movie experience at home. My father has the following setup:

1. 10ft projector screen (You can just frame and paint a wall for this, seriously) 2. Surround sound 3. Electric reclining leather seats 4. Popcorn machine 5. Coke machine 6. Located in the basement

This VASTLY beats out any movie experience I have ever had at a theater.

Touche6• 9 years ago

I'm sad to hear this honestly, I was hoping for this to fail to hasten studios accepting that straight-to-digital is the future. Charge me $50 per movie to watch them from the comfort of my home, please.

krapp• 9 years ago

Charge me $50 per movie to watch them from the comfort of my home, please.

Studios are probably too afraid of piracy to accept that - theatrical distribution is an effective means of restricting content distribution and of quality control.

Touche6• 9 years ago

You are probably right, but I'm not sure it's rational. Given the correct pricing to compensate for that, they can still make more money that they make today. I believe I read that the average person sees 2 or 3 movies per year at the theater. Imagine how many they might purchase from home.

manmal• 9 years ago

Whoa $50 would be way too much. 20 perhaps.. not sure I‘d sacrifice the full experience and awesome sound system at that price.

Touche6• 9 years ago

You have to consider that likely more than 1 person will be watching the movie, so based on average ticket prices they'd be taking a loss (vs. the theater) at only $20. I don't know what the price would be, but my guess would be that it would be a lot.

ac29• 9 years ago

That's existed for a while, but the price is a little eye-popping: $35k for the hardware and $500/rental. There doesn't seem to be much written about it online since 2016, so its possible its defunct or nearly so.

http://www.primacinema.com/

Touche6• 9 years ago

IIRC to even buy that you have to have a home theater. They come to your house and inspect to make sure it meets their standards. So yeah, it's not just the price, it's essentially a status product; meant only for the super-rich to show off that they have a home theater.

igaape• 9 years ago

Is movie pass applicable at all movie theatres?? Trying to do the math to see the value

allemagne• 9 years ago

Their materials carefully imply that they aren't, but in my experience all theaters are pretty much covered. Even the small artsy theater ran by a local non-profit.

joemi• 9 years ago

In my experience, most of the theaters in NYC are covered (including all the AMCs) but there are a small few arthouse theaters that aren't covered. That said, there are plenty of arthouse theaters in NYC that _are_ covered, so it's not a problem at all for me.

A bigger issue (for some people) is that it doesn't cover 3D films and other such fancy versions of films that also have regular versions. I personally don't care (I don't like the 3D ones) but I imagine that could be undesirable. Though, technically, there's nothing to stop you from using moviepass to see those kinds of things, but it's against their rules, so if they catch you they could cancel your subscription. I'm not sure how aggressively they check up on those things though.

nodesocket• 9 years ago

If you want to see some stock market manipulation and “pump and dump” look at the parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics ($HMNY) 6 month graph — https://finance.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AHMNY&ei=RAxFWt...

thebiglebrewski• 9 years ago

Haha wat. Can anyone explain this?!

burkaman• 9 years ago

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-11/moviepass...

runwerks3• 9 years ago

i've read that you can't 'pre-book' seats for theaters that have reserved seating a la fandango. you have to wait until you get to the theater to choose your seats. if they can fix this, i'll subscribe right away.

Cerium2• 9 years ago

You sure can. My local theater shows you a seating map when you buy the tickets online. It's like buying an airplane ticket!

runwerks3• 9 years ago

nice, so do you have to do this directly with the theater chain or can you do something like fandango?

DerfNet• 9 years ago

Some theaters let you reserve seats. In my region, none do. Luckily, in my region, most theaters do "$5 Tuesday", so everybody goes on Tuesday or Friday/Saturday night. Any other day of the week, at any time, is basically empty, so it's never been a problem.

pwinnski2• 9 years ago

You have heard correctly. MoviePass requires you to be physically present at the theater before "checking in" to the movie for which you intend to purchase a ticket. Only then can you use the MoviePass Mastercard to buy your ticket.

So you can pre-book and reserve seats, but only in person. If you live very close to a theater, you could pre-book at lunchtime and come back that evening to watch the movie, for example.

It definitely requires you to be physically present, though. There is no online ticket-buying with MoviePass.

runwerks3• 9 years ago

there's got to be a way to get that to work...

brownbat• 9 years ago

Let's run some numbers.

MoviePass will buy all your movies in a month for $10. They plan to make it back on monetized data. So one user ups his monthly movie consumption from 1 to 12. Let's say they get tickets at a bargain, $10 each. MP is paying > $100 a month to find out what movies this guy wants to see but isn't actually willing to pay for.[0]

That's puzzling enough, but, sure, data is a fun paradox, some kind of ubiquitous unobtanium, so for all I know they're getting it cheap. The actor in this story that really confuses me is AMC. "Not welcome here?" Why again?

Listen AMC, I'm going to let you in on something. For every $10 "someone" pays MoviePass, they are willing to buy 30 tickets.

No, look, no. I'm not saying "use proxies," like Redbox did to buy DVDs when the studios tried to cut them out of the system.[1]

Because, while I have no idea whether that's legal, I do know you're terrified of "value" customers filling seats. Discount entertainment terrifies you because you make almost nothing on ticket sales and all your profit from high-priced concessions. You need whales in seats. It's classic f2p, just somehow with a magically sustainable[2] exorbitant cost of admission tacked on to help you rent content at a ridiculous premium.[3]

So--drumoll--just advertise (hand out?) MoviePass subscriptions when people buy concessions. Anyone who already eats your food is already a w--, er, your target.[4] Not only will you get the MP ticket sales, so you can show foot traffic,[5] but also, bonus!--this will free up more of your customers' income for those ridiculously priced concessions.

[0] I have some cars I'd love to own, so if anyone wants to buy them for me, I will let them know which ones. I'll sign a contract for exclusive use of that data and everything.

[1] http://www.slashfilm.com/retail-conspires-against-redbox-by-...

Honestly though, the studios are probably already using proxies to buy MP subscriptions, just like how publishing companies buy their own books in bulk to drive up numbers. [1a] If not, ahem, studios, I'm going to let you in on something...

[1a] http://www.latimes.com/books/la-et-jc-handbook-for-mortals-b...

[2] Well, "sustainable" is TBD. But hey, people still buy cable for some reason. Ok, bad analogy. Uh, people still listen to AM radio? Hang in there, you too can be the niche medium of the future. Just start advertising dubious health and investment products before the films, you'll get there.

[3] Sidenote - This whole new releases model -- Basically the studios are trying to free ride on marketing? Which is the magic sauce that turns lousy movies into hits, so says NPR.[3a] What if AMC just played old indie marathons like the drive in, or the campus theater, for like a dollar a ticket, but advertised the hell out of them? Oh, right, value customers... Ok, go the other way. Follow the Karaoke Bangs where you can just stream whatever you want on a big screen in a small room, hang out with your friends, and maybe add steak dinners and champagne on demand. Just become a full service restaurant with private rooms that look like people's fantasy living room already.

[3a] https://www.npr.org/2015/08/21/433402308/how-marketing-machi...

[4] Here's where I clumsily avoid turning 'whale' into some kind of lazy fat joke. Look, weight is tough, no one needs to pile on. But also look, AMC has promotions for bags of popcorn with over a thousand Calories and drinks that are nearly a liter and a half. Sure, popcorn is for "sharing," but how does 54 oz of sugar water fit in any healthy diet? You're making Big Tobacco look like... like... Michael Pollan. Atul Gawande? Something something health expert.

[5] Welcome to the late 2010s, where the theory that eyeballs are better than revenue has been conclusively proven beyond any doubt, even if no one fully understands how.

greggarious• 9 years ago

Why buy a movie pass when I can just buy a ticket then theater hop after?

burntwater• 9 years ago

Because you have morals?

gnicholas6• 9 years ago

The real treasure in this venture, he contends, is the trove of data about consumer tastes and habits that MoviePass can collect. It hopes to sell that data to studio marketers.

I wonder if the privacy-minded folks on HN are averse to this. Or is it ok since you're getting discounted movie tickets in return?

I also wonder if they're going to take movie consumption data and marry it with other data they can glean about you (preferred theater location, residence and/or work from geolocation when you open the app, etc.). That data could be sold to folks other than just studios, since they can market related products or correlated products to you.

jonny_eh• 9 years ago

They're kinda beyond discounted. It's a discount if you see one film a month, but beyond that, it's basically free. It's such an insane value, I don't care if they know that I see every movie with a fresh tomato rating.

thaumaturgy• 9 years ago

I kind of want to share my viewing habits with studios that are willing to listen. They've been turning out some real garbage the last few years.

I'm fairly privacy-paranoid in general, but in this case, I'm maybe okay with it.

Buge2• 9 years ago

If I use a credit card to buy tickets, they can already track what I'm watching. And that's not even mentioning MAC address tracking that some places do.

gnicholas6• 9 years ago

I believe there are laws against using credit cards for the purpose of ID'ing and tracking customers. I don't know if they're state (I'm in CA, where consumer rights are stronger) or federal.

Do the theaters share purchasing information with studios or others? I would think that in the age of privacy policies, they would have to tell you if they want to do this.

gnicholas6• 9 years ago

Cinemark, the third-largest exhibitor, introduced its own subscription service in early December. For $8.99 a month, members can see one movie a month and receive a 20 percent discount on concessions, among other perks.

So I can get 30 movies per month for $10 or 1 movie per month plus 20% off concessions for $9? It'd take a helluva lot of popcorn to make that math add up...

michaelchisari3• 9 years ago

I don't see any way that the "one movie per day" model continues. At some point, they're going to cancel it and replace it with a significantly limited plan, and hope that a enough people stick with it anyways.

Otherwise, it's just unsustainable. They've got to be burning through VC money like kindling.

gnicholas6• 9 years ago

I'm curious to know what the mean and median number of movies watched per customer are. I don't think you can see the same movie twice, and there are only so many movies that a given person would want to see in one month.

From the consumer side, if people think they're going to see at least 2 movies per month, then this is a win. So the bar is pretty low, and I could see the mean/median being around 3.5 movies per month. I'm sure there are some heavy users, but there are probably also folks who forget to use it some months (but don't cancel).

DrScump3• 9 years ago

Is there a list of "participating" theaters anywhere?

I've tried a dozen browser combinations (Chrome, Opera, mobile, in and out of Incognito mode, 3 devices, all with Javascript enabled for everyone) and can only get "Oops! Something went wrong!" with the map feature. I'd be fine with an ordered list but see no such option on their site.

DrScump3• 9 years ago

There is a Costco promo for Moviepass + Fandor for $90/year, but it has a lot of negative reviews[0] this month (click on the "1 Star" bar in the review section; you can only navigate there via the javascript links).

[0] https://www.costco.com/MoviePass-and-Fandor-12-Month-Subscri...

The Costco page stresses that you have to have a mobile device with the Moviepass app running when you check in at the theater, but Moviepass's own signup process doesn't say that.

bkor• 9 years ago

In Netherlands various cinemas have their own unlimited scheme. It's usually 19-20 EUR while still needing to pay extra for 3D/IMAX. One (Pathe) charges 28 EUR to avoid the surcharges.

The price point of MoviePass is interesting and 24 USD (~20 EUR) is obviously much more than the 10 USD quoted here. Still, buying only at the theater is annoying. I prefer making a seat reservation and arriving max 5 minutes before the movie starts (there are loads of advertisements anyway).

Downsize of the Dutch unlimited options: you still have to arrive at least 30 minutes early and this gets annoying really fast (30 minutes minimum early is 35-40 in practice plus the 10-15 minutes of watching advertisements you've seen before)... quickly turns into loads of wasted time. I tried when they had a special (4 months for 40 EUR, so 10 EUR/month).

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