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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.
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.
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.
No, you're not. $9.95 is a great price point.
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)
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.
seeking in food is easy
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.
This much is known, but really, are my movie viewing habits worth enough money to anyone to pay for this? I highly doubt it. They'll pay pennies for that information, not dollars.
Well it could work. This could lead to greater attendance at the cinema, I expect for this to work, it would probably need to be for movies that are a week old, so we are going to the cinema for under capacity shows.
We may like this, as we can go to the movies, without having to worry so much about budgeting.
Cinema would like this as there will be more people in the cinema, more people buying concessions.
Key problems that I see, would be the number of people you can bring with such a service. Normally people like to go to the movies with someone else or their family. So $10 a month for one person would end up being $20 a month for 2 people and $40 a month for a family of 4.
But still that may be better then just staying home.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
Whoooooooosh.
"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
I'll admit that I didn't RTFS, so I was really confused. "Isn't that what Netflix is already doing?" Then I realized that they were talking about actually going to movie theaters, and I realized that I had sort-of forgotten that was a thing. Movies don't expire, and I don't feel the need to keep up with pop culture. I'll catch the good ones sometime in the next decade or so. Probably.
Overpriced garbage food, kids and teens, and lots of people dicking around on phones. I don't get why people go.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
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.
It's a family outing every once in a while.... maybe two or three times a year. We go to one of the places that has dining, usually. Often we go Sunday afternoon, or during the week when it's not crowded.
As far as this MoviePass scheme goes, though, it makes no sense as a business model. All you have to do is see more than one movie a month, and they lose money because they are paying the theater full price. That they raised money to help cash flow doesn't make any sense, either - that money will dry up and they will go out of business. They think they can make it up selling movie-goer data to advertisers? If the average ticket price is $9, factor in the average number of movies people will go to (a lot more than they go now, likely) - while some may already go once or twice a week, with a pass like this many people will go nearly every day. Even if it's only 5, on average, every month, that's a $35 shortfall (not even counting overhead). That's a LOT of advertising.
As a consumer, it sounds like a great deal.
What I envision is a few people making a giant pile of cash off the initial IPO, then dumping their stock while the company tanks.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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
Exactly. And yes, it's in TFA.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The service will definitely lose money on me, IF my local chain buys in to it -- I just sent them an email inquiring. I've seen approx 75 movies in '16/'17. That would be $170 under their model. Let's call it an average of $12 a ticket, that's $900 in ticket prices, a savings to me of $730, ignoring concessions since we're just talking ticket prices. Add my wife in, and the savings are YUUUUGE.
I just don't see how this would be long-term viable, especially since I'd create a new email address just for this service and would buy a debit card and/or set up a new PayPal account just to lightly fox their attempt at gathering info on me. Some info I'd willingly give them, but not all. I guess their money would be made in people who sign up but aren't smart enough to maximize the value, like paying for a gym membership and letting them hit your bank account every month, yet never using it. Still, I just can't see them lasting long-term. But if my local chain buys-in, I'll use it.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Maybe if they could work with the theaters to part with some popcorn profits, they could work it out? But theaters talk like every bit of that markup is needed for them to stay in business.
Dark Reflection
As this consumer it doesn't sound like a great deal, I would possibly see 1 movie a year, and that is probably because my kids force me. There are very few movies I would like to see. I even get free movie tickets from work, and I do use them, but only because they are about to expire not because I want to see a movie. To have this for my entire family it would be $50 per month.
I actually think this is a great idea from a business perspective, apart from having to subsidize the movies, but if the studios where part of it, that would not be necessary. People would go to movies because they are "free", but they aren't since people buy other stuff when they go.
They are using the PlanetFitness style business model. PlanetFitness has about 1400 locations and an estimated 10 million members. Their facilities couldn't possibly accommodate the over 7000 members per location, their business plan relies on selling very cheap $10 monthly subscriptions to people that rarely if ever actually use the service.
$5 for the bigger room with dolby atmos + 3D
The service will definitely lose money on me, IF my local chain buys in to it -- I just sent them an email inquiring. I've seen approx 75 movies in '16/'17. That would be $170 under their model. Let's call it an average of $12 a ticket, that's $900 in ticket prices, a savings to me of $730, ignoring concessions since we're just talking ticket prices. Add my wife in, and the savings are YUUUUGE.
AFAIK the rule for cinemas is that something like 90% of the ticket price goes to the company releasing the movie. Cineplexes make their money at the concession stands. From their standpoint, this is the perfect way to get more people into the establishment.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
But unlike Planet Fitness, they've got a second cash-flow: Charge outrageous prices on cheap junk food to the people who actually use the service. And they might be more willing to pay for it because they got a "free" ticket. So I think this actually works out decently well for them.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I suspect they're relying on people getting on board and not using the service.. You'd be surprised how many services do well with non-participating members. Think gym memberships. ;)
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..
No, they're not using the Gym business model. I think people aren't understanding that MoviePass is independent of the theaters you go to... it would be like paying a third party $10/month to go to Planet Fitness, and then that third party pays Planet Fitness $10 every time you used the gym. Even if half the people never went, if everybody else went only twice per month, the third party would only break even (actually lose money due to overhead). The business model makes no sense.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
There is one suggestion that if this could last long enough to become popular, then MoviePass would be able to start negotiating discount prices for people using it, but even then I don't see how they could possibly recoup all the money they'd be paying for tickets. Even if they negotiated half price for tickets, a customer need only use it twice a month on average in order for MoviePass to lose money.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
People aren't getting this - MoviePass doesn't make money when you buy concessions, the theater does. The same theater that MoviePass is giving FULL PRICE for your ticket to. The theater doesn't have some arrangement with MoviePass - they don't know or care where the money for the ticket is coming from. The theater wins, the film companies win because more people go to the theater, but MoviePass loses - it doesn't make any business sense.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
obviously they're banking on most subscribers being more like you, and less like the folks that go to the movies every weekend. and theaters may even be willing to sell movie-pass discount tickets, banking on most patrons that use one of those passes spending a bunch on candy and popcorn.
basically, everyone in the chain is banking on most people treating this like they treat magazine subscriptions. and that may well be a good bet.
Thanks - I hadn't totally wrapped my brain around that part. That's even crazier. It's like Planet Fitness but without owning gyms. Third party hoping that enough people sign up and don't use it that they turn a profit giving free access to another company. I bet good money they're soon going to have to put a * after unlimited and include some fine print about how often you can use their service.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
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 don't see many movies at theaters, but when I do it's in the winter. So I can bring in a few beers and candy in my coat pockets.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No, they're not using the Gym business model. I think people aren't understanding that MoviePass is independent of the theaters you go to... it would be like paying a third party $10/month to go to Planet Fitness, and then that third party pays Planet Fitness $10 every time you used the gym. Even if half the people never went, if everybody else went only twice per month, the third party would only break even (actually lose money due to overhead). The business model makes no sense.
At your %50 that is still a unworkable ~3500 regular users per location. While they don't release figures some estimates say over %90 of their customers use their locations less then once a month. At those type of margins MoviePass would be doing quite well if it can attract and retain enough customers
The claims of the company are not a proven business model.
It's a sliding scale, I don't know the exact numbers and it may vary depending on the movie/contract. Chances are that the bigger the (anticipated) blockbuster, the higher the ticket gross goes to the production house/distributor for longer. So when hopeful epic blockbusters like King Arthur or the Emoji Movie become epic failures, companies get screwed up and down the line. The longer the movie stays in the theater, the lower down the scale it slides and the more the theater makes per ticket. And the theater always keeps concessions.
This is one of the best things about digital projection: no print degradation when movies stay in a theater for a long time. I had heard that the production/distribution house can get 100% of ticket sales for the first week or two of a really big release of something like Star Wars, but it's pretty hush-hush. Who knows, with all of the shady bookkeeping tricks that Hollywood practices.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
They aren't, and although I don't claim to be a business genius, the business model looks like it can't possibly succeed.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
bazmail sneered:
Am I right?
For me? Yes, you are. But only because the movie-going experience so thoroughly and comprehensively sucks, here in the 21st century version of America.
Back when I was young, and we rode our pet dinosaurs to school (uphill both ways), going to the movies was a compleely immersive experience. No, we didn't have sooper-dooper Dullby sound systems, or especially convincing special effects, and the seats weren't nearly as comfortable as they are these days. But what we did have was a culture of respect for the experience. People might talk during the "Let's all go to the lobby!" concessions promo, but the absolute picosecond the newsreel started (yes, I'm that old), everyone in the theater shut all the fucking way up, and we all merged into that singular, collective creature: an audience.
There weren't any cell phones in those days, so, if you wanted to make a phone call, you had to go to the lobby to do it. There were theater employees called "ushers" (and usherettes), who would stand at the back of the auditorium (there was only one per theater back then - and, blelieve it or not, it usually had a balcony section to increase its capacity still further). Their job was to escort lobby-blinded patrons back to their seats, and to be on the lookout for "hijinks" and that most despised of all sub-human species, "talkers".
Talkers got ONE warning. That was it. Open your yap again, and you would be politely escorted out of the building. Get escorted out of the building too many times, and you would be banned from re-entering. Forever. And if you tried to pick a fight with an usher, well, there were plenty of aspiring knights-errant who were willing to lend him/her a hand in escorting you out of the building, only minus the "politely" part.
And that - plus the sheer size of the audience - made the experience an entirely different one that what modern movie-goers are subjected to. Everyone (except those hijinks-prone kids) was there to watch the movie. Not make and recieve a half-dozen phone calls, check their Facebook feed, chat with their posse, or carry on a shouted conversation with/exhortation to the characters on the screen. The screen was huge, the house was usually full, and the experience of seeing a movie with a room full of strangers, all raptly attentive, was satisfying in a way that watching the same movie in a theater today simply can't be. It wasn't a matter of degree. It was a matter of kind - an experience of a kind that simply no longer exists in the 21st century.
At least, not here, in the land of the free and the home of the entitled nitwit it doesn't. In other countries, YMMV - and it probably does. But in the USA, we've fully embraced out inner oaf, and the theater owners sit with folded hands and let their patrons progressively degrade the movie-going experience to the point where I, personally, would not go to the theater if you paid me to do so, because I just don't need the aggravation.
So, instead, I sit in my living room, with my 7.1 sound system, and watch (mostly pirated) movies on my modest, 40-inch flat screen. And, although I really miss the movie-going experience I remember so fondly from my youth (Just as a for-instance, I was lucky enough to live in Honolulu when 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered - it was one of only 6 cities in the USA which enjoyed the distinction of an exclusive, 6-week engagement - at the Cinerama Theater on King Street, downtown. It was a reserved-seat performance, and I was lucky enough to get a center seat, albeit in the third row, which turned out to be just a little bit closer to the screen than would have been optimal. When the lights went down and the curtain opened up, a hush fell over the audience. Which, y'know, was pretty normal for then. What was very different was that there was no concessions pitch, no newsreel, no previews of coming attractions. Instead, when the screen lit up, we were in
Check out my novel.
But only aggrieved right-wingers whine about something as trivial as entertainment.
Please. LIke all the people complaining about the white-washing of the Oscars? Check your bias. We all whine.
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.
Yes, but what is the AVERAGE number of times each customer goes? If the AVERAGE is more than twice a month, they lose. And you still don't get that it doesn't really cost the gym extra money (not meaningfully) is a customer goes once or 20 times a month, but it costs MoviePass a full ticket price every time it's used.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Any Western that features a gunslinger that is female or a person of color, and no other characters bat an eye. Entertaining yes, realistic no.
Or recently, Fantastic Beasts. Set in the 1920s, a time when women had just barely gotten the right to vote. And the president of the American magical folk is a black female, and 50% of the magical "enforcers in trenchcoats" are female. Clearly a choice by Rowling and the producers to give the magical folk 21st century levels of diversity, despite the time period. Not saying their choice was wrong, but it does seem like a bit of an anachronism.
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.
Sitting in chair for two hours eating and being entertained is NOT the same as working out. In fact, I'd use the movie service as another excuse to skip the gym.
They'll make it up in volume.
Ghostbusters. Fuck, it was bad.
Hopefully you acknowledge that women and blacks were generally kept out of leadership positions in the 20s in the real USA. So then the question is, does it make sense that magical folk were 100 years more enlightened than everyone else? I'd say its pretty arbitrary. Most Potter characters in the original books don't seem any more socially advanced than the rest of us.
Wonder Woman was about a Goddess, and much of the fish-out-of-water plot was about how little regard she was given as a woman by men in the military. Did you even see the movie?
It actually makes quite a bit of sense when you take a moment to think about it. Its the "Gym Membership Effect" in action.
At any given time there's 8 to 10 movies playing at the multiplex, and if there's more than 10 screens the films tend to be older and have a lower audience. Of those 10 films perhaps one or two will interest you, but some months nothing is going to interest you and so you won't go; MoviePass gets to keep your money that month. Or perhaps several months go by with you not seeing a movie, lack of interest, lack of time, it doesn't matter - they still have your money.
Its like those Gym Memberships everyone gets after the New Year, some people will be gym rats and go every single day - just like you'll get the odd cinephile who will see a movie every day. But most people will go once or twice a month, or less, but keep paying the payment for years because of traction and its cheap cost ("Its only ten bucks, and I did go to the movies last week."). They'll lose on the cinephiles, but they'll gain on all the casuals who go to the movies 3-4 times a year, the trick is going to be getting enough of the casual audience to sign up.
That said they might want to consider a "family" plan, my sister has three kids and taking 5 people is like taking out a small bank loan - but I'm betting she'd pony up $25 a month to surprise the kids with a movie night once in a while.
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?
It's absolutely NOT the "gym membership effect." I've explained it already - if you own a gym and get people to join, you can't lose whether or not they use the gym. It's a great business model. If you wanted to compare what MoviePass is doing, then you'd pay $10/month for "GymPass," who would then pay whatever gym you wanted to use (any gym that allows you to pay a one time fee to use it that day), and then GymPass would pay that fee (since the average ticket price is around $9, let's say it costs $9 to use a gym once). They would pay that every time you used the gym. Now you may not use the gym at all, and GymPass gets your money. But all that has to happen is the next guy uses a gym twice, and GymPass only breaks even (because of overhead). Now if the other guy averages twice a month, you only use the gym ONCE and GymPass is losing money.
You have to understand that MoviePass: 1) has no agreements with movie theaters for discounts or kickbacks, they are an independent third party, 2) pays FULL price for your ticket every time you go to the movies, gets NOTHING from the sale of concessions or anything else at the theater. Once they've paid full price for the ticket, that's the end of it.
The analogy also fails because, with a gym membership, you are locked into a particular gym, and the gym doesn't pay any significant amount when you use the gym - it doesn't matter whether you go or not, or whether the next guy goes or not. People also join gyms because of things like New Years resolutions ... nobody makes a New Years resolution to see more movies. On the other hand, MoviePass has to pay the theater EVERY TIME you use it, FULL PRICE, so even if you only use it a few times a year and they "make money" on you, all someone else has to do is use it enough that you both average ONCE per month, and MoviePass losses money (or barely breaks even).
Now, some people from Europe have pointed out that theaters there have membership options, and that can make some sense - you are locked in to that theater (or chain), they make money back on concessions, and they may have limits when it comes to opening nights and so forth - it can certainly be worth it for an individual theater or chain, especially because of concessions - but MoviePass gets NOTHING from the theater, they only PAY full price for your ticket and expect to get back all their money on selling marketing data, which absolutely will not be worth the cost (you're worth pennies, maybe a dollar, but certainly not the price of a movie ticket to advertisers), and the advertisers have no path to deliver advertisements to you, except in spam and snail mail.
The business model makes very little sense. If they pull it off, it's because they're not telling us something, or they are getting marketers to pay way more than the data can possibly be worth.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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.
The service will definitely lose money on me, IF my local chain buys in to it -- I just sent them an email inquiring
They don't have to "buy into it" - if they accept debit cards, they're "in" whether they want to be or not.
Agreed.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
You're assuming that people like me, who see maybe four movies a year in theaters, will pay for the membership. I won't. There's nothing in it for me. Someone who would go to a movie every week will join, and cost them money.
The reason gym memberships work like that is that going to the gym is a good thing for us to do that we don't necessarily want to do. Therefore, we pay money because it's good for us, and don't go because it's a pain. Going to movies is not an inherently good thing. People do it only because they want to. Also, once a gym takes my membership money, it gets to keep it. It only has to spend on keeping the facilities up, and if I don't actually go and wear anything out, that's mostly profit.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
There were lots of black cowboys back then, and the wizarding world was very much separate from the muggle world. Recall that two of the four houses at Hogwarts (Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff) were founded by women.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I laughed my way through the new Ghostbusters movie. I'm not claiming it's a masterwork of cinematic art, but it was funny. The gender reversal was part of the humor.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
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.