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

so I signed up for Moviepass out of curiosity a few weeks ago. $9.95 per month currently, can use it to see a new movie (non-3D or IMAX) each day.

You basically have to be within 100 yards of the theatre and 'check in' to the specific movie you want to see. Then you get a half hour to buy your ticket using the special Moviepass debit card. Supposedly 'checking in' loads the necessary balance to buy the ticket.

I've now used it five times without issue. It's a little mindboggling how this business model will work - the creator states it will work because the average user will go from seeing 3-6 movies a year to 6-12 movies a year...yet so far, everybody I know that has one has used it 5+ times in a given month.

I think it's obvious to say the $9.95 pricing is not going to last long (which is fine - even at $40/month, this would be worth it for me). But I really feel like this is the type of thing that could fall apart real fast.

What I don't get is AMC's vehement opposition to it. Like, they're getting paid for the tickets sold, and people will likely spend more on concessions if they're not paying an individual ticket price. Their statement that they don't believe in the business model's long-term success = who the fuck cares?

Anybody else using this thing?

Knowing nothing but what you just posted, sounds like yet another startup idea depending on people forgetting to cancel to make money that will be kept afloat by VC dollars, which will be spent on ads coming to a podcast near you. They are probably hoping to be acquired by a theater chain. Enjoy your movies!

I know several people who have been using it since early days, and it works extremely well by word-of-mouth - but I don't see it converting the occasional moviegoer. So it's a bit of a pyramid scheme built with VC money, so at some point, the piper needs to get paid. In this case they seem to be benefiting from muddling the identity of said piper - is it the theaters, the regular ticket buyers, or the VCs?

I don't think it can stick around unless they actually pull an Amazon Prime and get people paying for the option of using it and then not actually using it. Like subsidizing healthcare without an individual mandate. Flopson to thread.

netflix has 20billion in debt. losing money is not a problem so long as they keep growing. If moviepass get big enough to dictate ticket prices to AMC, that would be reason enough to scare them.

I investigated, and of course you need a phone. Not doin' that.

home page says
"ANY MOVIE
ANY THEATER
ANY DAY"

enter your zip code and it gives a list of multiplexes up to neighbouring cities, one rep cinema, and one arthouse.

I heard something about this service a few weeks ago, and for some reason I assumed it was an opt-in thing that my local theaters--my local arthouse, anyway--probably wouldn't be in on. But I guess it's not, so I just signed up. I will definitely either save money on this or lose money from spending too much on popcorn and soda, destroying my health in the process. Either way it should be lots of fun.

To answer the title question: I think it'll die. But it does seem like tech companies can stay afloat for years without ever making money, somehow, so maybe that'll happen with this too. (Wikipedia says it was founded in 2011, so maybe it already has.)

enter your zip code and it gives a list of multiplexes up to neighbouring cities, one rep cinema, and one arthouse.

ie not including half a dozen arthouses, in Seattle

looks pretty good for LA though!

This could work given the price of concessions. I think I paid $6 for a small soda this summer.

unless you are an absolutist like me who never drops a dime on concessions.

they were dying in the sense that until recently they had been jacking up membership prices with more and more restrictions, but the recent buyout is what precipitated this absurd "how can this make money" pricing.
if i were an indie theater, i would create extra showings with premium $20+/ticket pricing that movie pass would have to honor.

this means I can hate watch Justice League without feeling guilty this week

isn't it the 4th or 5th week that the movie theater gets to keep the majority of ticket sales, rather than it being slurped up almost entirely by distributor?

i've been using the hell out of mine, on the assumption that it can't last forever. in nyc it covers a lot of repertory and film-buff places so you really could see a great movie every day if you wanted. i've even done a lazy sunday where i paid for a screening of Paper Moon at a non-moviepass theater, did some reading, had a beer, then moviepassed a screening of the restored Old Dark House.

maybe the math makes more sense for them in the suburbs or something, where upper middle class families order them for the whole family then immediately forget about it and go infrequently enough that the money balances out once the price inevitably goes back up to the $50/month or whatever it was before this summer. idk. but imma ride this thing as long as i can. this weekend: lady bird! lost city of z! maybe something on friday!

used this on about 12 movies now. weirdly I signed up for the "annual" fee which equates to $6.95/month and they were supposed to take that this month and yet they just charged the old $9.95 rate.

feel like the movies per month will eventually be capped. I'm just milkin this as much as I can for now.

This has been great for me so far, set up subs for four people as holiday presents

I've used mine nineteen times since activating it on October 6. It's nuts.

Well, win lose or draw you got your money's worth!

goddamn smartphones

moviepass alone will have paid for my smartphone soon enough, but i assume that's not the main issue.

fwiw, anthology, FF, moma and momi are not on the service so it may offer less to you, morbs. (otoh: quad, metrograph, ifc, angelika....)

This has been great for me so far, set up subs for four people as holiday presents

https://www.moviepass.com/gifts/

seems to be back to $10/month, the ~80/year version having disappeared after a VERY short interval. still an insane steal obv.

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/hollywood-2017-in-review-box-office-netflix-1202647206/

There are problems with this business model. MoviePass pays full freight on each individual ticket that it’s customers buy, which means that it is losing money on a per-transaction basis and heavily subsidizing its subscribers’ movie-going. The company hopes that the data it gathers on its customers will eventually be so valuable that studios or movie theaters will give them a steep discount or that it will be able to monetize the information in a different way. It’s unclear if that will happen, particularly given that AMC, the world’s largest exhibitor, has at various points threatened legal action. If MoviePass doesn’t find a way to turn a profit, it could find itself in dire financial straits.

It's interesting cause basically all this was already true before the price drop, but obviously that has massively expanded the user base while reducing what each user pays so whatever's going to happen, they've kicked it into high gear.

Signed up, because what a deal (until they change the terms). Bummed, though, that it seems I can't use it until the card arrives. App requires the last 4 digits.

swiping the card to buy tickets also requires having the card

I just figured they'd email me my card number so I could start seeing movies right away.

a few theaters allow e-ticketing through the moviepass app now, it seems

our local beer/food/cinema place is apparently in on that deal so I'm tempted

very few though, apparently

I've used it at five different theatres this year, and ime cinemas are not set up for you to type your card number into the self-serve kiosk, nor for you to read your number to the box office attendant instead of passing them your card

one of our big AMC theatres was removed from the list of participants, weirdly.

I've used this a fuck ton, though not yet this month. I got in for the $86/annual rate.

I just found about the Costco deal, which is apparently still running, so I'm in

the only thing that sucks about it is if you go to one of the many theatres that do reserved seating now, because unless your theatre has eticketing (which most don't), you have to scan your card at the kiosk/box office, you p much either have to wait for your friend to show up, or buy your ticket and tell them which one to get to sit next to you and hope nobody else buys it.

though so far that hasn't caused major issues.

thanks to this I've gotten Regal fan club freebies a bazillion times a month lol

who is this "friend" you speak of

Peter Riegert

I heard that one of the big AMC's in New York (Times Square?) just stopped accepting MoviePass. If AMC jumps ship it could be a big problem.

for AMC or Moviepass?

AMC has notoriously been against it for weird reasons, and for those who live in areas that don't have as many options, it could strike a blow to the customer base in those areas for sure. people who live near in places like me, though, where there are a ton of chains available, would simply just go to a non-AMC theatre like Regal or Cinemark.

AMC just bought 2/3 of the local corporate-owned theaters here :/

beh.

https://deadline.com/2018/01/moviepass-lack-of-amc-theatres-coverage-1202269412/

Some details...this is actually coming from the MoviePass side

Missed this thread. Moviepass is insane. I've seen 37 movies since September with it. Hopefully they keep burnin' that VC money for a while before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

fwiw at least one of the nyc AMCs, at 86th (?) on the UWS, has never been moviepassable because they're on some premium BS with $20 tickets and recliners and stuff. if times square is dropping off i guess it COULD mean they're upgrading that place, or that moviepass didn't want to reimburse for upmarket tickets. bummer though... i mean schlepping to times square is a drag and the place is a vageuly depressing and unfathomable three-dimensional maze. but it's one of the locations that tends to participate in the big national short-run rereleases. saw close encounters there a while back.

where this really racks up value as a new yorker is at the repertory participants: IFC, quad, metrograph, BAM, alamo. you really could see a good or interesting movie every day on this thing. it's changed my whole relationship to the movies really.

I've used it at five different theatres this year,

update: six.

I used it twice in Manhattan, which was nice considering how much higher movie prices are there compared to here in Orlando.

including the Times Square Regal on 42nd street

The Costco deal came with a year of Fandor, too, so I guess my new problem is to remember to do things other than watching movies

lol i think last week was the first one that I didn't see a movie in months, was a weird feeling

I had meant to use the Costco promo. Turns out they are perfectly cool with you canceling and then going through the Costco promo instead, however, I have to wait for my account to activate first, which means receiving my card and starting the billing cycle first. But then once I cancel I can't use my primary email address for nine months until the account is totally closed. oh well, at least they are reasonably flexible.

man imagine being the moviepass intern stuck writing up little hollow, phony blurbs for stupid emails, hey movie buddy, we know your taste well and that's why we hope you're as excited as we are about MAZE RUNNER: DEATH CURE

this article on the AMC situation gives a much more hardball picture of the details: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/moviepass-cuts-ties-with-amc-theaters-in-battle-for-revenue-share-2018-01-26

“I’m 1,000% ready to do battle,” Ted Farnsworth, chief executive of MoviePass’s majority owner Helios & Matheson Analytics Inc. HMNY, -3.92% told MarketWatch. “Hollywood is definitely paying attention to us, now we have to start pulling levers. We have to say to AMC, ‘look you don't want to deal with us, fine, but we’re not going to keep giving you free money’.’”

Farnsworth initially said he would cut ties with AMC, but MoviePass decided early Friday to pull just 10 of AMC’s more than 600 theaters instead.

MoviePass drove more than 1 million ticket sales to AMC theaters last month, compared with 10,000 sales last July, the month before it cut its monthly subscription to $10 from as much as $50, said Farnsworth. He also noted MoviePass represents roughly 62% of AMC’s operating income.

AMC was quick to rebuke the company after the price cut, saying the business model was unsustainable.

an interesting argument. "we came up with a scheme to transfer massive quantities of VC money from fleeced investors to theaters, promising that we'd eventually find a way to make it profitable. now here it is six months later and you theaters are flush with our VC cash transfers and what have we got to show for it?? about time you started paying your fair share of this deal!" if they are really driving new business to the theaters, which wouldn't surprise me (though them being 62% of AMC's operating income strikes me as completely absurd - wtf is that stat), then maybe it is time to start weaving this idea of fee-sharing into their business plan but it's going to be hard to do it without it looking like a shakedown each time. anyway obviously fee-sharing would only lower moviepass's losses; they still have to find some way of actually making money. could be the Maze Runner ads prove more viable.

feel like we could make that back in T-shirts

trying to brainstorm whether there's going to be another "use app to temporarily unlock a credit card account for a limited transaction" industry in the near future so I could just sit on the patent and infrastructure code until.. profit

rip

lol https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/06/operators-moviepass-subscription-service-agree-settle-ftc

god MoviePass really did feel so "of the moment", even though it had been around a while before they lowered their fee to 9.95.

They’ve been told ‘don’t do any more fraud’ and rapped twice on the knuckles.

do they even exist anymore?

Someone has ownership of Gotti, somewhere...

So this is interesting
https://mubi.com/go/us

That is an interesting idea and possibly financially stable eventually. If I lived in the city I would definitely try it

once i can move my arm again and go out, i likely will. $260 a year for 51 pairs of movie tickets is a good set up.

Seems to come with a regular MUBI subscription, for now anyway.

They launched it in the uk years ago, it was initially part of the regular subscription but now you have to pay more for it (an extra £5 a month so still not bad). I’d def go for it if there were participating cinemas where I live, but the only one that has signed on here is a multiplex that never actually shows the selected films - I had the app on my phone for over a year & only had the chance to use it like twice

MoviePass is now promising a "2.0" relaunch, with details to come on a Zoom event from the theater at Lincoln Center, next Thursday. The website now has a vague statement about the virtues of subscription-based theatergoing. I've thought for a long time that an "indie theater coupon book" model might have small but viable legs, wonder if that's what this heralds.

Gonna be kind of hard to beat the ones now being offered by AMC, Regal, Alamo, etc.

Right, which is why I'm thinking it's indie-related.... like build a nationwide IndieCard program (in the pre-show reel: "We're proud to be part of the IndieCard discount program, helping keep independent cinema alive, nationwide" ). And it gives you, like, two bucks off at every indie theater, and some profitable number of theaters each take that deal because a) they make it up in popcorn and b) it's simpler/cheaper than operating their own membership program, c) being "visible" in an app like that could actually be great marketing. Catch road-tripping arthouse types, looking for a movie date in the cute town they AirBnBed in... I don't know how many theaters would actually be on board with that, either culturally or financially, but it seems sorta plausible in my hazy imagining of the biz.

the Mubi option is looking pretty good

I love MUBI GO, although I haven't used it recently for some reason.

He explains that with the new version of MoviePass, you can watch ads to earn credits that can go toward free movies. Your phone camera will track your eyeballs to make sure you're actually watching. "What it does is it basically creates a transaction between you and the brand." pic.twitter.com/Lip0CDXPLT

— Theo Wayt (@theo_wayt) February 10, 2022

oh no

surprise: we live in the worst possible version of reality

Lol fuckouttahere with that dystopian bullshit

Clockworkorange.gif

Lol there are a million apps that already do shit like that.

lol this is the dumbest thing yet somehow

Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus

— Alex Blechman (@AlexBlechman) November 8, 2021

MoviePass is back!

As.... something. They won't say what it will cost, or what it will actually do, or why anyone should trust them. But SIGN UP NOW to be on the waitlist for the beta version of... whatever it is!!! The FAQ page, hilariously, is concerned primarily with questions about the waitlist, a wonderful harbinger of great communication and customer service to come.

i'm not getting it lol

don't want no short short waitlist

Only about 10 hours left to get on the waitlist!

it's probably going to be the return of Columbia House-style sales.

You get to see 12 movies for the price of 1 (with an agreement to purchase tickets to 12 more movies in the next year).

Gotta say that Alamo's own version of this is way handier.

that's the thing, Regal's unlimited plan was $22 a month for unlimited movies AND I have a Regal in town that gets at least one art film a month mere miles from me, and it lets me reserve seats in advance.

most of our theatres are chains, and the one "art" movie theatre in the city basically watered down its selection years ago to indie films that you could ostensibly see at any theatre. so I have no neeeeeed for Moviepass.

unless they come with glasses that make the movie I'm watching better.

Orlando lost out on the Alamo Drafthouse we were supposed to get due to pandemic, still bitter about that

I signed up for the waitlist because I want to know what kind of clusterfuck they’re planning

I love Alamo's, but gotta admit the AMC version is mostly better because you get to reserve more than 7 days out in advance. Only point in favor of Alamo is that it's one per day, vs AMC's 3-per-week.

Still kind of hope for Moviepass working on the odd arthouse movie theater in my area and the other non-Alamo/AMC chains.

AMCs was decent too, I cut them out when I realized I was spending too much and forced myself to decide between Regal and AMC.

In my case I have a real advantage in that the Alamo is very much my local — as in five blocks away — theater. So honestly it’s my best value for money by default

nice basement too I hear

I'm still on it, just a little disappointed about the 7-day thing and also that they started charging me $1.89 "convenience fee" for each ticket, which is straight-up petty bullshit. And the various "movie party" screenings they programmed to avoid being eligible for Season Pass. etc. But my local Alamo is much closer than the AMCs, too. Since they reopened though, they've put on a lot less "trash" cinema and 35mm screenings that I used to love.

I remember the convenience fees from when I first jumped on Season Pass, they were really irritating then too!

CONGRATULATIONS, CHICAGO!
The Chicago area is one of the first markets in which we’ll be testing the new MoviePassBETA.
Here’s how the new MoviePassBETA will work:
In the coming weeks, we’ll send out exclusive access codes to create your account and sign up for your desired plan. To ensure we are able to meet demand, a limited number of access codes to the MoviePassBETA will be sent at a time. When you receive your code is based on your place in the waitlist.

Once you’ve received your access code, you’ll be able to sign up for one of these plans:

Basic - $10 (1 - 3 movies per month based on peak or off-peak times)

Standard - $20 (2 - 4 movies per month based on peak or off-peak times)

Pro - $30 (3 - 5 movies per month based on peak or off-peak times)

*Prices and credits per tier may vary per market. This is a beta launch so prices and levels are subject to change based on customer and market feedback.

Each tier provides you with credits that you’re able to use at any movie theater that accepts credit cards. The cost of each film varies based on demand and time of the week.

Start going to the movies the same day at supported e-ticketing theaters. Once you get your MoviePass card in the mail, activate it in the app, and go to any theater that accepts credit cards!

It’s our goal to use this beta period to work out the kinks and provide extraordinary service. That’s why we look forward to your feedback as you use the new MoviePass BETA

That… is underwhelming.

But my local Alamo is much closer than the AMCs, too. Since they reopened though, they've put on a lot less "trash" cinema and 35mm screenings that I used to love.

Cunning to have a system that provides worse value the more you spend.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-07/moviepass-was-not-a-good-business

The theory was that there were a lot of new marketplace businesses with strong network effects and winner-take-all dynamics, so it was crucial to get lots of customers quickly. If you could do that, you would lock in a leading position in the business, and your customers would come to rely on you. And then you could work out the unit economics — most obviously by raising prices, though you could think of other ways. Perhaps you would achieve some economies of scale when you got really big. Perhaps you could strike some sort of deal with your suppliers to lower your costs. In particular, there was a popular view that customer data was really valuable — “the new oil” — and that if you ended up with a lot of data about a lot of customers you could find some way to make money with it. Sell ads to other money-losing startups, maybe.

This theory sometimes went by the name “blitzscaling,” and it was part of the bull case for big-name startups like Uber Technologies Inc. and WeWork Inc. It was particularly associated with the venture investments of SoftBank Group Corp. and its Vision Fund. But the name that I often used for it around here — which I borrowed from Kevin Roose at the New York Times — was “the MoviePass economy.” Not because MoviePass was the first or biggest company to use this model, but because it was the funniest and most obvious example. When you take an Uber, you don’t really know whether Uber is making or losing money on the transaction. When you saw a movie with MoviePass, you knew.

I totally forget MoviePass even re-launched. Was that article a (second) obituary?

The article mentions (with this NPR link) that it’s coming back “but in a much less funny form.”

it's being rolled out in single cities as test markets and you get "credits" to spend on movies where the price varies depending on popularity, so i'm so it seems like they're actually trying to turn a profit this time

Yeah, I knew it was coming back; Chicago is one of the test markets, and I had an invite, though I had no interest in getting a membership. I just wasn't sure if all that had happened already and the service quickly died a second death.