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Netflix Co-Founder's Crazy Plan: Pay $10 a Month, Go to the Movies All You Want (bloomberg.com)
Mitch Lowe, a founder of Netflix, has a crazy idea. Through his new startup MoviePass, he wants to subsidize our film habit, letting us go to the theater once a day for about the price of a single ticket. From a report: Lowe, an early Netflix executive who now runs a startup called MoviePass, plans to drop the price of the company's movie ticket subscriptions on Tuesday to $9.95. The fee will let customers get in to one showing every day at any theater in the U.S. that accepts debit cards. MoviePass will pay theaters the full price of each ticket used by subscribers, excluding 3D or Imax screens. MoviePass could lose a lot of money subsidizing people's movie habits. So the company also raised cash on Tuesday by selling a majority stake to Helios and Matheson Analytics, a small, publicly traded data firm in New York. [...] Theater operators should certainly welcome any effort to increase sales. The top four cinema operators, led by AMC Entertainment, lost $1.3 billion in market value early this month after a disappointing summer.
Am I right?
There isn't $120 in movies worth seeing. Even at $20 a ticket I would save $40 a year paying full price for my tickets.
>> subsidize our film habit
Not sure I have a "visit theatre" habit anymore. I thought about going to see a couple of movies this summer but the cost/hassle/commute wasn't worth it, so I'd have to say the last time I set foot in the theatre was for Star Wars commando movie, and even then it was the full 3D experience (because otherwise why bother).
to beggers on the street
Tickets sales are WAAY down.
The problem is studios are formulaic about their stories, waaay lost in the jungle of fantasy, and getting very preachy about what political view they KNOW I should have.
I'm not paying for that. I'm not pirating that. I'm staying away.
the basic full price of each ticket can be $13-$14 before added costs.
... to kick out all teenagers and people with small kids?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I bet the business model is to make money on the people who will rarely use this and hope the devil customers don't sign up in droves. Figure by next year they will start implementing limits like a lot of these crazy unlimited services do
They're hoping to collect marketing data. I am skeptical that the marketing data is worth that but even so it strikes me as a bad deal for everyone.
what about places like Hollywood Blvd that have 1 food item minimum??
and if this takes off then what happens when that 1 food item minimum?? starts at $5-$6 for say an small popcorn or $4.50 for a coke?
Their website calls it a "Theater Network", which immediately conjures up the idea that it doesn't work everywhere. But there's no way to see in advance (that I could find) which theaters participate in their service. The FAQ has this specific question listed, but it just tells you to go back to the main website, where there is no apparent way to find this info without signing up for the service.
Yeah, you get a 1-month trial just like Netflix did/does, but I'd still like to see in advance if it's even worth pursuing.
I do Redbox and I watch maybe one or two movies a month. Because most movies are kids shit, action shit, superhero shit, you know, dumbed down crap for the masses.
Recurring revenue is all companies can think about and it is destroying things
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
to deal with everyone else at the theatre.
This just seems like a pre-brokered deal to sell end-user data at all costs from movies, to spending, to everything --- I love how it has to take 'credit/debit cards'; try not to be so obvious as to what you're doing. We all know our 'data' is worth mega bucks, so why make it look like a great deal to the end user by selling us an idea like a 5 year old who would do anything to get a cookie out of the cookie jar? No thank you.
Even if it was at face value of $10/month for endless movies with no data, I don't even go to the movies ONCE in a month, let alone finding anything of interest or quality to even watch that comes out much anymore.
But as my subject eludes to, I just wait until the big-box theaters move off the movie and hit it up for a fraction of the price at cheap, last-prime theaters or go to really small community theaters with a single screen. I get to see new release throughout the summer for $5 and can easily slip into a large popcorn and diabetic soda coma for under $7. So for $2 more, I'll take that any day of the week over this shit show of a sales pitch to data mine my life anymore.
Remember folks, theaters make very little if nothing on ticket sales. Most of that goes directly to distributors & media companies, (and middlemen).
Where theaters really make their money is concessions. So hey, why not let in a bunch of people for basically free (nets the theater zero$), in the hopes you'll triple the amount of popcorn & sugar water sales!! To the average Joe they have just 'saved' thirty bucks on tickets & may drop the same into local establishment's fun-food instead. Really.
The subsidy for this is obviously collecting all our movie-going habits into a big analytics database. Perhaps it will be very vaguely mentioned under one line of fine-print in a 5 page terms of service.
To quote Helios and Matheson's homepage:
"WE ARE BIG DATA
INTUITIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
PREDICTIVE BIG DATA ANALYTICS
DATA VISUALIZATION SOLUTION"
Think of all the eyeballs they'd have gained. That should be worth a unicorn valuation.
Sure, offering a potential monthly expense of $300/month for only $10/month sounds nuts, but who would honestly use it that much? There are a limited number of films in theaters at any one time, and one can only see "The Emoji Movie" so many times, or preferably not at all. My guess is MoviePass and theater operators realize a couple of things: Unless I live next door to the theater, I'm only using that service one to three times a month. My kids want to go to movies too, and they'd need either tickets or their own MoviePass accounts. And every time I step into the theater, they're getting $10-$12 out of me for popcorn and bucket-o-soda. I bet all of that works out in their favor.
In my town of Denver with 500 screens there can be as many 40 different movies or as few as 25. The low times are during dead periods, like now, or blockbusters when up to quarter of the screens show the same movie nearly around the clock. Then maybe I am only interested in quarter of them. So there generally are not enough movies to see even one every day.
Back in the olden days before cable and streaming, many cities had repertory theaters (e.g. Palo Alto Varsity) that showed two classics every two days. That was ample selection.
Movies have largely become "event" things in our culture. Date night, family nights. Not something we do on a daily or even monthly basis.
$20 a month for a couple to have 4 "date nights" seems like a good deal but how is that any better than $10 for a month of Netflix and chill nights? Especially when your choices are far more limited and you have to deal with annoying crowds.
(full disclosure - I pay extra for IMAX)
They should have the customers buy their soda and popcorn on the same debit card and track it back to the movie attendance. With the margin on those items, the ticket should be free.
Buy a large popcorn and soda at full retail and get free admission to your next movie.
wtf you have to purchase food to go to watch a movie. that's some bullshit right there.
The secret to Netflix's success is not video streaming. Their "disruptive innovation" was their business model - a flat monthly fee to watch movies instead of paying per use, and then also paying late fees. Business model innovation is as disruptive as technology innovation, as Blockbuster video can tell you. Sure, this idea has lots of details that need to be worked out in order for it to succeed, but don't say that it has no chance. It could work. People have gym memberships, why not movie theater memberships?
I personally don't understand the appeal of a drive-in, maybe its because I'm slightly tall @ 6'1" but cars aren't relaxing to sit in and the windshield doesn't provide great vertical visibility.
My car is more comfortable to sit in than most movie theater seats. Plus at a drive in you're less likely to be disturbed by your annoying neighbor and his noisy spawn. Vertical visibility doesn't matter unless you are sitting right under the screen. As long as you can see the entire screen who cares if you can't see above it?
That said, the same is true for the theatre, no leg room and rarely can you get one of the good seats in the middle of the theatre.
I don't consider being in the middle of the theater consequential to it being a good seat. I just want a seat which is comfy, has adequate leg room, where I don't feel crowded or disturbed by my neighbors, where the arm rests fold up, the floor isn't nasty and the sound is good. Being in the middle of the theater isn't inherently required for any of this.
The gym membership model .... well, it works for gyms. We'll see.
I'm a political centrist, and perhaps even a socialist to some degree, but I find that far too much of the recent content out there is pretty blatant leftist propaganda.
It's particularly pathetic when they remake or "reboot" older productions, but try to unnecessarily inject identity politics into the films. There have been a number of remakes of previously-successful movies where things like the characters' race or gender were changed solely to try to push a leftist agenda.
It's idiotic when they make films depicting some historical period of time or event, but then inject characters with various leftist-imposed identity traits that are totally out of place given the context of the film.
It's even worse when leftists scream about how bad "cultural appropriation" is, yet they're perfectly fine taking existing cultural works and twisting them to promote leftism.
Even in the best case, where a film is only just overly politically correct, the end result is something I don't want to watch. The end result is often so bland and sterile that it's not worth watching.
We're already subjected to enough leftist propaganda as it is during our day to day existence. The last thing we want to do while trying to relax is be subjected to yet more of it!
seeking in food is easy
Marcus Cinemas in Madison, WI has had this for years. Difference is that it is $25 a month instead of $10.
My current understanding is that the theaters make the great majority of their revenue on concessions and almost nothing on the films. My recent experience is that for a family of three, tickets and refreshments are roughly the same cost. (Refreshments may be a little more depending on what we get.) A sharp reduction in ticket costs is very attractive.
Couple this with other recent changes observed in local theaters (not upscale spendy places that happen to show films, but regular everyday theaters) -- assigned seating, wider seats that tilt back, foot rests, beer and wine, something bordering on real food (approaching happy hour appetizers, not just candy in cellophane). Add a flat price on tickets, and hey, we'd definitely go to the theater more often.
But it seems that this would necessarily result in reduced revenue to the content owners. So this would either be for second run films, or movie producers would have to set their expectations lower.
Side note, lower expectations might be a good thing in the long run. More concentration on story, effects doing more with less, and perhaps fewer of those really expensive eye candy extravaganzas that don't make a lick 'o' sense. Oh, and maybe, actors would have to actually, you know, act, not just look pretty.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I know that a lot of cinemas make their money on food and beverages rather than tickets, but I've never heard of anywhere on this side of the pond REQUIRING you to buy food; it seems extremely backwards and wasteful. How many people buy stuff and don't finish it, or buy unhealthy food when they shouldn't because of that stupid policy. I'd say that they should just increase ticket prices, but there's probably some asinine contractual reason why they can't.
I looked the place up - the concept is more like a restaurant + theatre, so they are in the food business as well. I imagine they have better offerings than greasy popcorn and overpriced candy.
I'd probably go there if I *already* had plans to get dinner before the show, but I'd avoid it if I didn't want to buy food.
It appears the Slashdot affect has brought down this website a good sign for their customer interest. I am just thrilled to see that Slashdot still has this affect.
I think the production company gets the lion's share of the opening ticket prices, and the theatre's cut goes up over time. So requiring a concession purchase increases the margin they keep more than increasing the ticket price.
"runs a startup called MoviePass"
They should have called it 'Korben Dallas Multipass'
I know of at least a couple of retirees who would love to get to the movies a couple of times a month.
So let's see if the theater in their town is supported. No can do. If you want to know, you have to JOIN.
WTF?
Tickets sales are WAAY down.
The actual evidence says otherwise. Movie ticket sales have been a good approximation of constant for the last decade including last year. Revenues are up substantially as they are charging more per ticket.
Initially he will pay the theaters the "full" price. Once he has enough clout he will negotiate for discounts, play one chain against another. At some point he will dictate the prices. But most theaters depend on pop and pop corn sales and lose money on the screens. So might not turn out to be bad, if the volume of theater goers increase.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Europe already has this. I was in the Netherlands, Pathe offered unlimited access for 19.95 euros a month. Perhaps $10 is a little low, but the idea already exists and seems to be received well.
The app gives them access to all your data on your phone I'm assuming. It will ask for permissions, once granted you've opened up your phone to be a money line for them. Each time you goto the movies and load the app, more data is collected.
I think I saw 2 movies last year.
Netflix has tons of DVD movies that should be copied to a SAN and made available to us viewers. I'd gladly pay $20 a month to access nearly every movie and TV show ever made. I'm not really interested in going to a physical theater to watch a movie. My home set up is quite nice and features a pause button for bio-breaks.
One of the cinema chains here in the UK runs a membership card that gives unlimited visits. Back when I could regularly get to one I'd watch just about every film they had. Plus discount of snacks and a few other places. They cost around 17 GBP pcm now and are a pretty good deal if you watch more than a couple of films a month.
TL:DR sounds like a great idea at twice the price.
This is not a crazy idea. UGC, a cinema chain based in France, offers unlimited access to its cinemas and other participating cinemas for 21.90€ a month.
Exactly.... there are a couple of movie/dinner places around here. The seating is limited to account for the space people need to eat. I'm nor surprised a place like that would require some minimum purchase. I wouldn't know - I've always just gotten a meal there (well, for the whole family), because otherwise we'd be going to a different theater.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Hmm.. I would perhaps have been interested, except that all movies are shown in so called "3D". It is not possible to find a 2D show for most films where I live.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
That's what this sounds like. Mathematically unsustainable.
$5 for the bigger room with dolby atmos + 3D
Drive-in movie theaters, like drive-in diners weren't *JUST* about the movie/food. They were ALSO social venues, much like diners in general back in the day. Part of the American dream (that everybody forgets about) was having places like that one socialized at. You'd have your local friends you hung out with, and then you'd have the aquaintances you'd catch up on when you both happened to visit on the same night.
Something that is often lost on 'average' americans nowadays is a lot of the social network that used to go into life, much of which was declining BEFORE the internet made its big splash, but which has largely been supplanted by 'community jumping' with the move to social media, cell phones, and irregular/rotating work hours/days.
Most of the cinema chains already have a moviepass which is about 1.5 the price of a ticket, and it has no restrictions on how many times a day and it even comes with a discount on food and beverages..
The only theater in town closed down a couple years ago so unless I want to drive to the next town over.
So $4 in gas a trip loss of over an hour in drive time each trip so 3X a month i'll i've spent more in gas than the subscription then most likely many months there won't even be a movie showing I want to watch.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
I'm guessing that while it obviously won't work with the business model as publicised, they have plans to make it work. I can see two ways that this would work for them:
Partner with theater chains for a lower ticket price. The only part of this that is difficult is that there's no motivation to partner if they get full price if they don't, and members don't want to only have access to certain chains. Perhaps if they gain a significant share of the market, they could force it.
Partner with the studios to get them to subsidize it. They're getting most of the money back from the theaters, so they'll still make more money if they get more people in the seats.
Pay just $10/month, and then you can spend $10 each day at any grocery store!
Sounds like a solid business model to me.
This is absolutely nothing crazy about it. It already works in Poland. You pay 44PLN (which is ~12 USD now), and you get a very similar service - watch as many movies in a movie theter as you want for a month.
I go to the movies to see good movies; there hasn't been a good movie in along time.... Soooooooo no thanks.
I see an average of two movies a month in the theater. A ticket here for non- Imax/3D/ extra shit I don't care about is $6.50. Buddies from work gather, see whatever random movie, only $10 a month sounds like a deal if we can see three movies over the month. Yes I agree finding three movies to watch might be hard, but I don't care what critics or other people think of a movie, I am easy to entertain for a few hours.
I tried to go to the actual site, but seems to be down for some unknown reason /.
IMAX and 3D are the only reasons to go to the movies any more. I already have a great setup at home to watch movies, and I can basically see anything I want that's no longer in theaters any time I like for less than a movie ticket.
now back to the gutter
what about places like Hollywood Blvd that have 1 food item minimum??
This was the single most annoying thing about my visit to America. We were never able to pay the advertised price.
Here's the advertised price.
Oh you we have a 2 drink minimum in here.
Don't forget the state taxes and city taxes on your ticket price.
Hey don't you know it's customary to tip.
In most of the rest of the western countries it's illegal to tack any requirements on top of the advertised price which weren't expressly priced up in the first place. It was truly bizarre and very annoying.
Not many movies, for me anyway, are worth: Loading up the car, driving across town, parking (rain, snow, heat, cold), standing in line if I don't buy the tickets early, Overpaying on the concessions, finding a seat (when I don't pay extra for a "lazy boy" seat), dealing with morons in the theater that talk and still continue to check their phones, dealing with people wanting to get by you to go to the concession stand/bathroom, waiting in line to use the bathroom, waiting to get OUT of the parking lot, dealing with traffic to get home, unwinding then going to bed if it is late enough. Or...I can wait til it hits netflix/redbox, buy it, play/stream it in the comfort of my own home, for "pennies", eat my own snacks, lounge around in my PJ's, and drink whatever I want. Gee, and other than the HUGE screen, what's the advantage of going TO the theater again?
the biggest reason I don't go to the movies very much anymore is that the movies themselves aren't worth going to that extra effort, I'd rather just wait for home video
the "experience" is a big contributor too, i.e., even before home theaters were everywhere, I hated going to movies early into their opening because it was a nightmare fighting crowds only to get in there and now you're next to the most annoying person on earth
they've improved it some in recent years, reserved seats are fantastic, reclining seats really great
I still have two big complaints though that keep me from going to most films
they don't start on time, and yeah previews are part of the movie watching experience that is fun, but the previews should start before the posted start time. and you know starting 5 minutes after the posted time would be one thing, but we're talking regularly 30 minutes after every time I've been to a film in the past few years
the other people, theaters need to have ushers more visibly patrolling and calling out those disrupting others' enjoyment
Price point is a bit higher at equiv $20 per month. Also you sign up for 12 months.
Seems to be profitable. I stopped my sky cinema subscription to afford it.
I think they made my money from me. After initial Bing in first month averages around 3 visits a month.
So only new thing here is lower price point.
We keep saying that theaters take almost nothing from the first weeks of releases, and they "have to" sell overpriced popcorn and other shit to guilt us into buying them.
But theater chains are big. Why don't they renegotiate these deals to get a pricing structure that works better these days ? It's not like it's written in Constitution that they have to sit down and take it from Hollywood. Hollywood needs them just as much to make their numbers.
Make you pay for Netflix, then send you to a theater
The anti-cell phone commercials are new and multiplying annoyingly.
The others are about the same, but the stagnating economy and the mostly laziness of recent movies have increased the "weight" of those factors when considering where to spend your limited entertainment dollar...
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/amc-moviepass-1202528974/
Looks like AMC does NOT want to play at ALL. From what I could tell, AMC is trying to figure out how to not deal with MoviePass at all, presumably because they want it to fail horribly before MoviePass gets consumers used to the idea of cheap movies.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
I do not see this model revolutionary, at least not now. When I was in NL a few years ago, I had such a pass for about 17 or 19 EUR/month. I could see as many movies as I wanted, provided, there were free space. You had to pay additionally a couple of EUR for 3D glasses.
Ok, this one is going to be cheaper - but this is not revolution.