MoviePass

[nevets88]

Studio Movie Grill Owes MoviePass a Nice Thank You Card For Boosting Attendance

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Thanks to a partnership with MoviePass, Studio Movie Grill saw “record attendance attributed to the help of MoviePass, led by an increase in off-peak attendance as well as with smaller films.” Studio Movie Grill directly attributes their increased attendance to the use of MoviePass, a confirmation that the subscription-based movie ticketing service is paying off for some folks. Find more details on the MoviePass Studio Movie Grill partnership below.

http://www.slashfilm.com/studio-movie-grill-owes-moviepass-a-nice-thank-you-card-for-boosting-attendance/

[nevets88]

Now it has the NYT's attention. Wow, it only had 20K subscribers before the price drop. 

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Mr. Lowe, who previously sparred with studios as president of Redbox, the kiosk company that rents DVDs for $1 a day, believes that ticketing can at least be a break-even business for MoviePass. 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.

Mr. Farnsworth said, “When you apply computer science and machine learning to an industry that we believe has lacked significant innovation, useful patterns start to emerge.” If MoviePass gets big enough, it could try to demand that chain theaters sell tickets at a discount or share a slice of their concession revenue.

NYT being snarky:

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The big theater chains have held their ground, although AMC recently softened its stance. A bit.

“We appreciate their business,” Adam Aron, AMC’s chief executive, said on a conference call with analysts last month. But Mr. Aron added, “AMC has absolutely no intention — I repeat, no intention — of sharing any — I repeat, any — of our admissions revenue or our concessions revenue.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/business/media/moviepass-theaters-tickets.html?action=click&contentCollection=Food&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

[saevel25]

Cinemark has already started their own movie pass program. For 8.99 a month you get one free movie and all other movies at 8.99 except 3D or other enhanced screenings which have slight upcharges. There are no fees for online ticket purchases. You can buy guest tickets at 8.99. There is a 20% discount on food and drink. 

Typical movies are $10 for standard showings. 

[iacas]

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

Cinemark has already started their own movie pass program. For 8.99 a month you get one free movie and all other movies at 8.99 except 3D or other enhanced screenings which have slight upcharges. There are no fees for online ticket purchases. You can buy guest tickets at 8.99. There is a 20% discount on food and drink. 

Typical movies are $10 for standard showings. 

Yeah, not here in Erie. Most movies are $5.99. Some are less expensive. The Cinemark movie pass thing is a totally stupid idea in Erie. You pay more and literally only get 20% off concessions, but you'd have to spend $15 in concessions for every ticket just to break even.

[dennyjones]

2 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Cinemark has already started their own movie pass program. For 8.99 a month you get one free movie and all other movies at 8.99 except 3D or other enhanced screenings which have slight upcharges. There are no fees for online ticket purchases. You can buy guest tickets at 8.99. There is a 20% discount on food and drink. 

Typical movies are $10 for standard showings. 

there is one Cinemark theater near me and it's more expensive than a regular movie ticket.   I don't do snacks or drinks at the theater so it isn't feasible for me.  

[nevets88]

This company man. Burn rate baby. Burn rate.

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The movie ticket subscription service has launched MoviePass Ventures, a subsidiary that will co-acquire films alongside film distributors with the aim of releasing them theatrically and digitally. With this bold move, MoviePass — which will begin its acquisitions at this year’s Sundance Film Festival — may be able to fill the hole that Amazon Studios could soon be leaving at independent film festivals.

http://www.slashfilm.com/moviepass-ventures/

[nevets88]

This Sinema plan is not bad at the promo price, reserve in advance, IMAX/3D, couples plan.

https://www.sinemia.com/

https://www.sinemia.com/new-plans/us/seattle

[Pretzel]

1 hour ago, nevets88 said:

This Sinema plan is not bad at the promo price, reserve in advance, IMAX/3D, couples plan.

https://www.sinemia.com/

https://www.sinemia.com/new-plans/us/seattle

That seems more interesting to me, personally. I don't watch movies alone, but my girlfriend likes to watch movies. I showed her the MoviePass and she was interested in the idea, but didn't like the restrictions it had on what showings you could watch and also that you couldn't reserve your seat in advance of the day of (meant you'd be stuck in the front row if you watched a popular movie within a week or two of release). This seems to solve both of those issues.

[iacas]

7 hours ago, Pretzel said:

That seems more interesting to me, personally. I don't watch movies alone, but my girlfriend likes to watch movies. I showed her the MoviePass and she was interested in the idea, but didn't like the restrictions it had on what showings you could watch and also that you couldn't reserve your seat in advance of the day of (meant you'd be stuck in the front row if you watched a popular movie within a week or two of release). This seems to solve both of those issues.

Just show up early enough and you'll get a good seat.

Sinemia is much more expensive, and is limited in the number of movies you can watch per month.

I'm happy with the MoviePass.

[Pretzel]

5 hours ago, iacas said:

Just show up early enough and you'll get a good seat.

Easier said then done when you have classes until dinner time, unfortunately. I can understand the sentiment. 

5 hours ago, iacas said:

Sinemia is much more expensive, and is limited in the number of movies you can watch per month.

The biggest downside would be the number of movies per month you can watch, but I don't think there has been a month where my girlfriend and I have watched more than 2 movies before anyways. As far as cost goes, the Sinema for 2 would be $20.99 a month for the two movies (which can be booked in advance and in the "special" theaters if you want), compared to $19.90 a month for 2 different MoviePass subsciptions. Overall in my situation where wanting to see more than 2 movies a month is rare and the convenience of booking in advance to make sure you have seats, as well as getting to use the nice IMAX theaters nearby, the added benefits of the Sinema would outweigh the disadvantages (fewer movies per month, slightly higher cost). 

To use last year as an example, here are the movies that released each month that I was actually potentially interested in seeing:

January - None really

February - LEGO Batman Movie (the LEGO movie wasn't bad) and John Wick: Chapter Two

March - Kong: Skull Island, Logan, Beauty and the Beast

April - The Fate of the Furious

May - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Baywatch, Pirates of the Caribbean

June - Despicable Me 3

July - Dunkirk, Spider-Man: Homecoming

August - The Hitman's Bodyguard? Not much really

September - Kingsmen: The Golden Circle, It

October - Blade Runner 2049, Jigsaw

November - Thor: Ragnarok, Murder on the Orient Express

December - Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Of the months where I liked the look of 3 of the movies, it happened to work out where the following month there was only really 1 movie that interested me so it would've worked out where I would still get to see all the movies I was interested in that released that year. I'm not a huge movie person myself, hence why being limited to 2 movies a month isn't as large of a factor in what's convenient to me (though I can understand why it is a big deal for others who watch more movies).

At least to me it's a more interesting program. I can understand why the MovePass would be more appealing to other people for those advantages, but to me the advantages of Sinema would be much better suited to my movie watching habits (watching popular movies preferably the week they come out while still having decent seats, planning for the movies in advance rather than just showing up early, watching them in IMAX or RPX or whatever fancy theater option is available if better seats can be found in that showing).

[NM Golf]

My wife and I just signed up, we have a ton of extra time in the summer. Anyone still use the service? Issues or anything I should know?

[nevets88]

There's another service, Sinemia, that has a couples plan, but not unlimited, but still reasonable and unlike MP, lets you reserve in advance and IMAX.

I use both, haven't had any major problems, but lots of people not happy with CS.

[dennyjones]

35 minutes ago, NM Golf said:

My wife and I just signed up, we have a ton of extra time in the summer. Anyone still use the service? Issues or anything I should know?

There was something in the news within the last couple weeks about them changing their plan.   I don't believe you can watch the same movie more than once.

[Pretzel]

1 hour ago, nevets88 said:

There's another service, Sinemia, that has a couples plan, but not unlimited, but still reasonable and unlike MP, lets you reserve in advance and IMAX.

I use both, haven't had any major problems, but lots of people not happy with CS.

Not happy with Sinema CS, or MoviePass CS?

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Pretzel said:

Not happy with Sinema CS, or MoviePass CS?

FWIW I've never needed MoviePass's customer service.

[nevets88]

2 hours ago, Pretzel said:

Not happy with Sinema CS, or MoviePass CS?

MP CS.

A not trivial number of people have problems using it, they don't read instructions. Have stood in line behind people who bring a printout of their e-mail and ask how to use it. 

I've had MP fail on me, it only paid part of the ticket price sometimes, I didn't even bother with CS.

[nevets88]

MP is looking for 1.2 billion dollars in funding. Billion. 

Haven't been using it as much, have been using Sinemia, because reservations.

Thinking of signing up with AMC A-List, may wait till winter, when awards season picks up.

[dennyjones]

Moviepass ran out of $$

The movie theater ticket app MoviePass suffered an outage Thursday when its parent company couldn’t afford to pay for its customers’ tickets, CNN reported.

That parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., never paid the contractors who process their customers’ payments, so the contractors stopped processing them, leaving MoviePass customers unable to purchase tickets. The company was forced to borrow $5 million to pay the Company’s merchant and fulfillment processors,” according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

With MoviePass, customers pay a flat $9.95 monthly subscription fee for the ability to see one movie a day, every day. The business model leaves many wondering how this could possibly be profitable. The company’s own auditor isn’t sure that it is possible with the current model.

“MoviePass currently spends more to retain a subscriber than the revenue derived from that subscriber, and [other] MoviePass sources of revenue are currently inadequate to offset or exceed the costs of subscriber retention,” said the auditor in a Helios and Matheson company report released in April.

 

As of Friday, MoviePass services were back up and running. For now.

MoviePass

 

✔@MoviePass

 

 

We are happy to report we have resolved the issues with card check-ins and our service has been restored. Please note some showtimes will not be available for check-in.

We thank you for your patience. You may read below for more information:https://moviepass.com/service_updates_20180727/ …

4:11 PM - Jul 27, 2018