Seems like this is the direction the industry is going, however the actual service here is much worse than MoviePass' (seemingly unsustainable) model. MoviePass is $9.95 for one movie per day.
FTA:
>...customers who pay a monthly fee of $8.99 will receive a credit for one movie ticket a month. Subscribers can also buy additional tickets for $8.99 each and get a 20% discount on food and drinks.
That doesn't sound like a subscription. That sounds like you're paying $8.99 for a ticket once a month. Why wouldn't you just buy an $8.99 ticket as-needed?
"Valid on all regular 2D movies. Upcharges may apply for premium formats like XD, 3D or IMAX. Upcharges may apply in Cinemark reserve dine-in - 21 and over theater in Bellevue, WA and Cinemark Playa Vista and XD in Playa Vista, CA"
So for $8.99/mo I can go to one movie a month (which is a little higher than matinee pricing around here), but only at Cinemark. Option 2 is spend $1/mo more with MoviePass but I can go to a movie every day, and I can use it at my local independent theater. Kind of a no-brainer here...
Cinemark is not in competition with MoviePass. If someone uses a MoviePass, Cinemark makes money because MoviePass bought a ticket. The reason Cinemark is losing money is because they have a bad product. They show terrible Hollywood films, have terrible seats, and terrible food. I still go to the theater, but when I do, I go to theaters like Alamo Draft House (Austin), Hollywood Theater (Portland), Manor Theater (Pittsburgh), Broadway Theater (Salt Lake City).
My local Cinemark recently remodeled all the rooms to have fantastic reclining seats and reserved seating. In my experience, the trendy or upscale theaters like Alamo Draft House have far worse seats and screens. If I want $10 craft beers I can buy those at a store and drink them at home. The only reason I'm going to a cinema is to have the best possible comfort, picture, and audio.
The Cinemark on International Drive in Orlando is fantastic. Cheap prices and big comfy reserved seating. Can't comment on the food but the snacks and drinks are much lower priced than anywhere else I've been recently.
My local cinemark is by far the best theater in the area. Large, leather recliners, reserved seating, and a variety of special events (Anime, classic movies, and things like the Dr. Who christmas special) make it pretty nice. I can't comment on their food other than popcorn, which I thought was average. It's not quite the Alamo Draft House, but between it and my local indie theater, I think we have it pretty nice.
It seems as though the cinema is finally entering a secular contraction. Home video hardware is getting cheaper and higher quality. Content going straight to netflix/hbo/hulu is getting better. And sitting in front of a movie sucking down 32oz of sugar water and fat soaked popcorn doesn't sound quite so appealing these days.
I'll see the new Star Wars, no doubt about that, but besides that I can't remember a time in my life when I went to the movies less than I do now. For the same price, I can get a nice meal out and watch a movie at home.
The popcorn isn't even good. I want butter and salt evenly distributed throughout the entire bucket, not a disgustingly over seasoning top inch, and a bland inedible bottom 90%.
The cheapest matinee is a Tuesday 5.75 about 20m from me. It's just not worth it at all. Serialized dramas that I binge watch are killing movies. Attention economy continues to forces changes in old media.
You forgot broken seats, sticky seats and floors, other movie goers talking and looking at their devices, etc. The last time we went to the theater a woman seated next to my wife kept getting up and leaving. Finally she came back and spilled her beer all over my wife. Then sat back down without apologizing. We haven't been back to the theater since.
While it's lower than at its peak, 2016 still beat 1995 in inflation-adjusted dollars, so they're not doing too badly: https://www.the-numbers.com/market/
Or at least Walt Disney isn't: they got 7 of the last 10 top grossing movies of the year.
I still love going to the movies and go now as much as ever, and will probably go much more now that I have MoviePass. I like being able to watch movies on the huge screen without all the distractions (roommates trying to talk to me, phone checking habits, etc.).
One of the theatres here in Canada has now started offering VR experiences. They have a lounge area with about 8 different experiences, with prices in the $12-15 range for 15 minutes. Gotta give them full marks for attempting something new.
Because most people probably only go to an average of one movie a month (or less), and the new service rolls over unused credits? Basically, if you go to 12 movies or less a year, MoviePass is more expensive.
How does this take on Moviepass? MoviePass lets you watch 1 movie per day, whereas this is 1 movie per month with a very modest discount on concessions.
I'm confused why Movie Theatres don't actively promote MoviePass to their customers.
Isn't MoviePass paying full ticket value to the theatres? They should be offering people discounts to show their movie pass cards on concessions, and otherwise get people showing up for free subsidized movies while they can.
Their concern is the long term consequence, not the short term benefit.
> and otherwise get people showing up for free subsidized movies while they can.
The issue comes in when the "free subsidized movies" ends, but consumers are left with the expectation that the economics of movie sales can support that model. If MoviePass's business model turns out to be unsustainable and shuts down, all of the consumers that have gotten used to it will suddenly baulk at paying retail rates again. Rates that, while discussed as expensive, were accepted as the status quo prior to MoviePass.
The alternative also isn't pleasant for the theater: The economics of MoviePass work out, but now MoviePass has the relationship with the consumer. As it gets more popular, MoviePass gets more market power to dictate discounted rates with your theater, with the implicit threat of blacklisting your theater from MoviePass locations if you don't play ball. While in theory that doesn't hurt the theater, since such a high percentage of box office revenue goes to distributors rather than to the theater, distributors won't take that squeeze either. They'll either shift back to fixed-cost film distribution (which theaters don't like, because it's risky) or start adding in more and more onerous minimum guarantees to contracts to make up the absolute dollar difference. i.e. if your distributor gets 95% of box office revenue, slashing ticket prices from $10 to $5 only costs you $0.25 in revenue but it costs them $4.75. While you can make up your very minimal lost revenue from concessions easily, they can't. They're not going to eat that quietly, no matter how much additional volume you generate.
You are missing the power the theaters lose to MoviePass. MoviePass is almost assuredly not sustainable in its current business model. It is only a matter of time until they go to the theater chains with data saying X% of your customers are because of us, give us Y% of that revenue or we will direct our subscribers to competing theaters.
Moviepass(MP) does two things: (a) it can bring in people who otherwise would not go to theaters; (b) it can convert regular movie goers (regular customers of movie theaters) as customers of MP.
Exhibitors like AMC, Cinemark, etc are happy with (a). They are worried about (b). MP will end up being the majority buyer of tickets sold by exhibitors; when it happens, MP will negotiate hard for tickets.
What if MP goes bankrupt after converting a sizeable number of customers of exhibitors into MP's customers? This is why AMC/Cinemark is blocking e-tickets for MP customers; they are also blocking any reward points for MP customers, even though MP pays full price for every ticket since it is paid through master card.
If the model is, as everyone says, unsustainable and money losing, then the more popular it is, the more people will stop going to movies entirely because their price expectations have been reset when the MoviePass model collapses.
If it's going to fail, theaters are best off with it having as few users as possible until then.
As far as I understand, the theaters get little to no revenue on ticket sales. But I guess it would still make sense to advertise since it means more snacks will be sold (on average).
MoviePass is a data play, right? After signing up recently, I read their terms of service and it seems like they exist in order to build customer profiles and harvest data:
It's not that I object to this particular instance of this practice. I, for one, am willing to trade my movie-going data for cheap movie tickets. However, I am genuinely confused about how they intend to keep it going.
The more I think about MoviePass the less I like the model. In http://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-business-model-2017... they say they're trying to offset high ticket prices in some places with lower ticket prices in other places. What kind of business model tries to shift money from places that have less to places that have more?
I think their ideas about a business model are hogwash.
Even in places where the movies are $6/month, they would need huge numbers of people to sign up, and use the service 0-1 times per month, month after month..
That doesn't seem realistic. Even with their new contract model, I don't see this working.
I don't see how they could possibly survive without inventing a new revenue model.
In the meantime, I'll keep enjoying my VC subsidized movies :)
Another poster explained that their goal is to intermediate -- to get between moviegoers and movie theaters, and then charge theaters for access to moviegoers. This is how Google makes their AdWords money, for example, but the model is far older -- BBB, general contractors, etc.
You may remember this concept from the net neutrality debate!
I just bought the year pass from them. I think the model is just going to fail. Right now they are the fabled "raising revenue by selling a dollar for 90 cents" start up that hopes to "make it up in volume."
The only way it works is if people don't actually use it.
Still waiting for the ability to purchase a new movie from home. Can't think of a single reason why it hasn't happened yet. Charge $50 if you want, people would pay it. And it would probably actually recreate that water-cooler conversations that don't really happen all that often any more.
I forget which theater chain it was, but I had one of these subscriptions when I was in London alone, semi-broke and super bored for an entire summer back in 2007.
I must have seen every damned movie that came out over a three month period. It was awesome.
This is useless if the quality of movies coming out remains the same. I usually only make it out to see a movie every 3-4 months. It's hard to find something worth a 2-3 hours of my time.
It's also useless because no matter what the theater does, nothing beats the experience of being at home.
It's not like a restaurant. A different atmosphere is a plus with restaurants. Not with theaters: you stare at a screen with the lights off the whole time. Also, with a restaurant you are served food without doing any work. Sure, watching a movie in the theater requires no work, but it's also trivial to play a movie at home.
Because the winning side in a civil lawsuit is allowed to recover its legal costs from the losing side. If the victims wouldn't have brought their insane suit first, Cinemark wouldn't have had costs to recover.
If you bite off more than you can chew don't blame anyone but yourself when you choke.
[+] [-] firloop|8 years ago|reply
FTA:
>...customers who pay a monthly fee of $8.99 will receive a credit for one movie ticket a month. Subscribers can also buy additional tickets for $8.99 each and get a 20% discount on food and drinks.
[+] [-] ryandrake|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _JamesA_|8 years ago|reply
"Valid on all regular 2D movies. Upcharges may apply for premium formats like XD, 3D or IMAX. Upcharges may apply in Cinemark reserve dine-in - 21 and over theater in Bellevue, WA and Cinemark Playa Vista and XD in Playa Vista, CA"
[+] [-] djrogers|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zwily|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsnick|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MentallyRetired|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkmurakami|8 years ago|reply
A theater showing great classic films with great seats would be a nice change and as a 30-something, quite an affordable entertainment option.
[+] [-] Kihashi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tuxxy|8 years ago|reply
If you like the Alamo Drafthouse, next time you're in SLC check out Brewvies.
[+] [-] cjlars|8 years ago|reply
I'll see the new Star Wars, no doubt about that, but besides that I can't remember a time in my life when I went to the movies less than I do now. For the same price, I can get a nice meal out and watch a movie at home.
[+] [-] jjaredsimpson|8 years ago|reply
The popcorn isn't even good. I want butter and salt evenly distributed throughout the entire bucket, not a disgustingly over seasoning top inch, and a bland inedible bottom 90%.
The cheapest matinee is a Tuesday 5.75 about 20m from me. It's just not worth it at all. Serialized dramas that I binge watch are killing movies. Attention economy continues to forces changes in old media.
[+] [-] irrational|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icebraining|8 years ago|reply
Or at least Walt Disney isn't: they got 7 of the last 10 top grossing movies of the year.
[+] [-] baron816|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npollock|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smaili|8 years ago|reply
> It’s also the cinema industry’s first direct answer to MoviePass, a New York start-up that offers unlimited movies in theaters for $9.95 a month.
How do they expect this to be successful when the average customer should be able to understand 1/day > 1/month?
[+] [-] cwyers|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cortesoft|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schlipity|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ada1981|8 years ago|reply
Isn't MoviePass paying full ticket value to the theatres? They should be offering people discounts to show their movie pass cards on concessions, and otherwise get people showing up for free subsidized movies while they can.
Am I missing something?
[+] [-] cosmie|8 years ago|reply
> and otherwise get people showing up for free subsidized movies while they can. The issue comes in when the "free subsidized movies" ends, but consumers are left with the expectation that the economics of movie sales can support that model. If MoviePass's business model turns out to be unsustainable and shuts down, all of the consumers that have gotten used to it will suddenly baulk at paying retail rates again. Rates that, while discussed as expensive, were accepted as the status quo prior to MoviePass.
The alternative also isn't pleasant for the theater: The economics of MoviePass work out, but now MoviePass has the relationship with the consumer. As it gets more popular, MoviePass gets more market power to dictate discounted rates with your theater, with the implicit threat of blacklisting your theater from MoviePass locations if you don't play ball. While in theory that doesn't hurt the theater, since such a high percentage of box office revenue goes to distributors rather than to the theater, distributors won't take that squeeze either. They'll either shift back to fixed-cost film distribution (which theaters don't like, because it's risky) or start adding in more and more onerous minimum guarantees to contracts to make up the absolute dollar difference. i.e. if your distributor gets 95% of box office revenue, slashing ticket prices from $10 to $5 only costs you $0.25 in revenue but it costs them $4.75. While you can make up your very minimal lost revenue from concessions easily, they can't. They're not going to eat that quietly, no matter how much additional volume you generate.
[+] [-] slg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raincom|8 years ago|reply
Exhibitors like AMC, Cinemark, etc are happy with (a). They are worried about (b). MP will end up being the majority buyer of tickets sold by exhibitors; when it happens, MP will negotiate hard for tickets.
What if MP goes bankrupt after converting a sizeable number of customers of exhibitors into MP's customers? This is why AMC/Cinemark is blocking e-tickets for MP customers; they are also blocking any reward points for MP customers, even though MP pays full price for every ticket since it is paid through master card.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|8 years ago|reply
If it's going to fail, theaters are best off with it having as few users as possible until then.
[+] [-] Cyph0n|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perfmode|8 years ago|reply
https://www.moviepass.com/content/terms See "18. Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information"
It's not that I object to this particular instance of this practice. I, for one, am willing to trade my movie-going data for cheap movie tickets. However, I am genuinely confused about how they intend to keep it going.
[+] [-] stickydink|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdruxn|8 years ago|reply
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/moviepass-plans-to-make-mo...
[+] [-] sp332|8 years ago|reply
Edit: had the last part backwards, d'oh
[+] [-] e1ven|8 years ago|reply
Even in places where the movies are $6/month, they would need huge numbers of people to sign up, and use the service 0-1 times per month, month after month..
That doesn't seem realistic. Even with their new contract model, I don't see this working.
I don't see how they could possibly survive without inventing a new revenue model.
In the meantime, I'll keep enjoying my VC subsidized movies :)
[+] [-] gameshot911|8 years ago|reply
The NFL and the (US) federal government come to mind.
[+] [-] goialoq|8 years ago|reply
You may remember this concept from the net neutrality debate!
[+] [-] rhino369|8 years ago|reply
The only way it works is if people don't actually use it.
[+] [-] Touche|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhino369|8 years ago|reply
Piracy.
Any home version of a movie would be ripped and put on warez in hours after release in 4k. I'd never go to the theater again. But CAMs and TS suck.
[+] [-] buckminster|8 years ago|reply
http://www.primacinema.com/
[+] [-] kchoudhu|8 years ago|reply
I must have seen every damned movie that came out over a three month period. It was awesome.
[+] [-] lebanon_tn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] choward|8 years ago|reply
It's not like a restaurant. A different atmosphere is a plus with restaurants. Not with theaters: you stare at a screen with the lights off the whole time. Also, with a restaurant you are served food without doing any work. Sure, watching a movie in the theater requires no work, but it's also trivial to play a movie at home.
[+] [-] snug|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redleggedfrog|8 years ago|reply
And now that they get paid regardless of whether I go or not I fully expect the crap to get even worse.
[+] [-] atmz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lozaning|8 years ago|reply
If you bite off more than you can chew don't blame anyone but yourself when you choke.
[+] [-] RandomInteger4|8 years ago|reply
Pay $7.50 normally or experience the deluxe super duper savers package for $8.99! WOOOO!!!
[+] [-] erickhill|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chipperyman573|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Frye|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdjasldkjkljd|8 years ago|reply
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