MoviePass - will it die a premature death or is it here to stay

You know what they call a Moviepass in France?

in nyc at least you could easily watch a film every single day all year and it never be a new american movie

I suspect that NYC is the only city on the planet where one could do this

never been there, but Paris, maybe?

Counting repertory theaters you could do this in Copenhagen as well and probably in every other European capitol there is.

In today's limiting of available sessions, they have left off the revival house's 7pm screening of Goonies, which costs $10 on the door, and left on the 9:30pm Goonies, which costs $1.99.

I've already jumped to AMC A-List and like it 300 times better. yeah, it's more expensive ($19.95), the being limited to only AMC theatres sucks, so there goes any art theatres or theatres closer to me, but you get 3 movies a week free, and that includes premium showings like IMAX. plus you can buy/reserve the tix in advance, and earn rewards/etc. Also you can see multiple movies in one day (I did last night!). and you get your own dedicated concessions line, which is good for impatient people like me.

not going to replace the free showings at the local art theatre and means I'll be paying out of pocket more often for movies at other theatres but hey I'll take it.

xpost This is staggeringly common - matinees blocked when later, costlier shows aren't. What I'd expect is that the later show will *also* disappear later on; the running paranoid crank theory is that MP has rigged the app so that it'll always *look* like it's working, with some smattering of shows, but by purging shows as the day goes on, reduce the likelihood that anyone gets tickets, since only a minority of users are willing and able to go get tickets early in the day even if they realize the showtimes are likely to disappear. Characteristically, the CEO has indicated their intentions to stabilize the listings and end all this, but that's not to happen until at *least* when all the monthly subscriptions have finished the rollover to the new plan mid-September.

this might be the case, cos we were going to see Teen Titans the other night and it was in the Moviepass app seemingly up until the time we got to the theatre 30 minutes prior to show time.

P much all daytime screenings have been unavailable for a week, except yesterday. The 21:30 Goonies definitely won't be available bcz the theatre doesn't open until 18:30, and by the time the early screening is running, everything will have gone from all theatres in the app.

this place doesn't do physical tickets, either, so in the stub verification era we had to take a photo of their computer screen. (if you pre-order online, they just have your name on a list at showtime.)

has anyone on ilx been asked to re-verify their ticket stub or been questioned about it?

Neanderthal, above

as far as I can tell he got the email about it, but then proceeded to take pictures of random junk with no repercussions!

the email counts as a question

my flatmate got follow-up messages a week or two after not bothering to verify a stub, too

so they're not completely asleep at the wheel, but verification is definitely a slipshod business

Workaround for evening-only shows -- show up for intended time, activate moviepass for later showing, buy earlier time ticket, take picture of ticket with thumb obscuring the show time.

I haven't used Moviepass as much as I hoped, but the first time I was asked to verify a stub I did and the second time I totally forgot, and so far no fallout (or maybe I broke the company).

blacked out at the multiplexes today: The Darkest Minds, The Big Lebowski 20th Anniversary, MI:FO, Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings, Crazy Rich Asians, and Christopher Robin.

some mid-afternoon screenings of available films are showing up, but none between 11am and 2pm.

one/off Hecklevision screening of Face/Off at the revival place not showing up :(

I've used it four times this month already, so it's doable if you're willing to suffer...

After announcing a few weeks ago that they would be shutting out blockbusters for their opening fortnights, like Christopher Robin and The Meg, instead The Meg and Slender Man are literally the only films available in Seattle this weekend. No BlackkKlansman, no Darkest Minds, no Dog Days, no Eighth Grade, no Sequelizer, no Incredibles, no Jurassic World, no Mamma Mia, no Mission, no Oceans, no Dumping Spy, no Catcher Spy, no Wayne's World, no Sorry To Bother You, no Truth Or Dare, no That or any other Summer, neither Ant-Man nor Wasp, no resurrection from the Grave Of The Fireflies, no McQueen, zero Identical Strangers.

I got the email saying I’m grandfathered into the old terms under my annual plan. I have no idea if that affects movie availability though.

I'm still on the annual plan until December, but don't think I got a special email of comfort and reassurance

movie availability is unrelated to the plan grandfathering - they're just really really aggressively restricting film options for everyone right now. the hope is that after 9/15 when all monthlies will have finished rolling over to the 3-a-month scheme, reducing their cash crisis (or maybe gradually on the way til then), they will open back up showtime availability. but we don't really know. right now it is obviously next to useless. the slenderman people cut a promotional deal with them and maybe the meg people did too.

idg the theoretical September 15 deadline tho, which is why I mentioned December, when I signed up

It seems super arbitrary even then - for instance, ok, if you're going to allow THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST, why only at Theater A and not at Theater B? Same with THE MEG.

You may have seen our previous emails about a few changes we're implementing over the next few weeks. We continue to add more new releases into the app and wider showtime availability for all users. On Monday we also announced our new $9.95 plan. To clarify, YOU ARE NOT CAPPED TO 3 MOVIES PER MONTH, you will be able to choose if you wish to continue once your plan ends on 2/6/19.

As a reminder, here are the details of your current MoviePass subscription:

You are able to see a new movie each day of the month!
You are not subject to our Peak Pricing surcharges
You may be asked to upload a copy of your ticket stub after your tickets print at the theater
If you'd like to continue your MoviePass subscription after your year is up, you'll be able to do so with our new plan. Our new plan will include up to three standard movies a month for $9.95, and you will also be eligible for $2.00 to $5.00 off any additional movie tickets purchased within the billing cycle. Discounts on additional tickets will be calculated by various factors including geography and the movie title. The remaining balance for the ticket will be charged to the credit card linked to your MoviePass account. Again, until your renewal date, you'll enjoy the benefits you've grown to love.

9/15 has to do with the monthly people having their opt-in (switch to the 3-a-month plan or quit) starting 8/15. so on 8/14, almost all of their monthly subscribers are on unlimited movies (a few suckers at some point got saddled with like a 3-a-month for $7.95 plan or something) and by 9/16, 100% of their monthly subscribers are on 3-a-month. at that point, each day they're collecting $9.95 a month from roughly 1/30th of their monthly subscribers and spending, it's hoped, way less than they are now since people will have to be choosier with their ticket picks. and, in theory, that means they will un-hide more showtimes and reduce the changing showtimes through the day to make it look less absurdly different from the real showtimes on offer from theaters.

the annual subscribers, like you and me, will continue to be a millstone until 1 year out from whenever they stopped offering new annual plans, but there will be fewer of them with each passing day.

right now, their whole game - as far as anyone can infer - is to get from one day to the next on whatever amount they get in that day from monthly charges. when they get close to that amount they kill the showtimes. until that time in the day, they're disappearing and reappearing showtimes to make it hard and confusing and probably so they have cash on hand to cover the e-ticket purchases. or something like that.

I doubt it's as fiddly as putting "new signups" on one side of a scale from "today's fees"*, they're just trying to stop people buying tickets as much as possible

*esp bcz new sign ups must be thin on the ground these weeks

rn at 02:45 p much everything is showing in the app: let's see how that's holding by 10am.

new signups don't enter into it i don't think

09:30 - no cinema in town is showing any film at all, except for one that has eight screenings of Slender Man

yeah so.... who's in for slender man????

pretty amazing how the service has evolved into three tiers: e-ticket theaters, slender man theaters, and rare oddball theaters that have only 2/3 of their offerings purged (and whose remains probably won't be there by the time you arrive). the first of these at least give me a shot at seeing Cameron Post and BlacKkKlansman this week so that's cool.

I don't know if this is true, but from what i understand, even annual sign ups are trickled out to MP on a monthly basis - so even though you paid a year in advance, the credit card company holds onto the whole amount and gives up 1/12 of it, so MP is getting revenue every day from these (as well as the normal monthly memberships).

i believe that is correct!

is there some industry-wide credit card standard for that? seems off to me

https://www.yahoo.com/news/moviepass-reportedly-enrolls-past-subscribers-231051832.html

$126 million loss in the June quarter. Shareholder is filing a class action against them for, I guess, being bad at business. HMNY trading at $0.05 today.

https://deadline.com/2018/08/moviepass-hmny-shareholder-lawsuit-quarterly-loss-1202445563/

Has shareholders suing the company for being bad at business actually ever worked?

signed up for sinemia a few weeks ago but never got a physical card and the app is a nightmare. I'm just gonna cancel - not worth the fuss. Apparently I have to really hassle them to get my refund, too.

correction: they have informed me that sinemia plans are non-refundable even though they make you pay for a year upfront lol

BS, run a chargeback through your card.

Yeah, I'm looking into how to do that.

merchant disputes (I didn't get what I paid for!!! the quality is not what was promised!!) through CC chargeback probably easier than a dispute where you indicate you gave no authorization for the charge at all and the company does.

good luck!

sorry to hear that abt sinemia! that sucks.

moviepass is currently a near-absolute joke. and yet I just successfully used it to see madeline's madeline, somehow - apparently one of three or maybe four non-e-ticket offerings you can see today, anywhere. who knows what it'll be tomorrow? but still worth hanging onto my annual membership and seeing what happens. i have a shred of hope that they get their finances just slightly stable enough that i can rely on it to see repertory again. alas, the bygone days of just a few weeks back!

haven't yet walked into an amc and used my a-list, but i've advance reserved a couple of things and that was really really painless. if you're in a situation where AMCs show a reasonable portion of what you wanna see / what's even available in your area, it's a "pays for itself in 2-3 movies a month" kind of deal. in NYC it pays for itself in one IMAX screening. most of what i want to see doesn't play at AMCs, but a fair number of things do.

the newest new idea: a calendar listing specific movies available each day (obv no guarantees that specific showtimes of these will be available, or will remain available as the day wears on)

I was so shocked that Crazy Rich Asians was working today that I went ahead and saw it, so I guess their evil plan worked

it failed, as the goal of all this nonsense is to suppress use and reduce expenses. better luck next time!

if I'f known that BlacKkKlansman was going to be one of today's two available movies citywide, I wouldn't have paid for Christopher Robin and gone to BlacKkKlansman yesterday ;_;

The collapse broadens: Annual members are all being converted to the 3-a-month limit, less than three weeks after being promised that quarterly and annual plans would not be affected until their next billing date. Just to be extra dickish about it, they also counted anything you've already watched this month towards the 3-a-month total, so in my case I can't watch anything until 9/6 (because supposedly I started my annual plan on 8/6, which is, surprise, false - they weren't even offering them!). Man they're determined to go down pissing everybody off despite having enabled us all to see dozens of movies for a song, it's kind of amazing.

Literally what cash are they covering the remaining debits with at this point?