MoviePass Will Increase Price, Limit Availability of New Movies (theverge.com)

After running out of money and shutting down for a night last week, the movie ticket subscription service MoviePass will increase its price to $14.95 a month within the next 30 days. Furthermore, "first-run movies will only be viewable on a limited basis during the first two weeks of release, unless the company has a promotional deal with a given film," reports The Verge. From the report: MoviePass' statement claims these changes are being made "to enhance discovery, and to drive attendance to smaller films and bolster the independent film community." In a widely reported all-hands meeting at the company, MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe cited the upcoming Christopher Robin and The Meg specifically as films that would not be available to subscribers. More broadly, MoviePass hopes to make smarter decisions about potential partnerships with studios and brands in the hopes of turning a profit, though no specific details were shared at this time. This new price increase is in addition to the already-announced plan to implement surge pricing for popular movies.

Comments

I'm a big user of MoviePass

[davide marney]

...but it's fading. Not because MoviePass doesn't work or is even difficult to use -- it isn't -- but because once I started going to the movies more often, I realized that movies themselves are uniformly poor. In the past when I'd see a bad movie, I'd just chalk it up to bad chance. But now I see that pretty much the whole lot of them are just not that great, almost immediately forgettable. And rare indeed is a Hollywood-produced movie that is any good, in my experience. Independent film has a far better hit to loss ratio.

The mission of MoviePass is to get people to new movies, and that was achieved very well in my case. I did watch a whole lot of new movies. Even with the upgraded price would still be a good deal, if the product was worth my time.

Re:I'm a big user of MoviePass

[ledow]

Yep.

I've not been to the cinema for years, but from a promotion from an unrelated company (my mobile phone company), I got a load of free or really-cheap tickets (50p for any movie, etc.).

I used them up, at a place with free parking, not far from my house, sat through big-name movies, didn't pay a penny for any extras (popcorn, etc.).

A few things occurred to me:

- The theatres were empty. Barely 10% occupied most of the time. And I was going after work, in the evening, on weekends, etc. to released-that-week movies.
- The adverts were far too long, but I took it as "part of my free night out".
- The movies were... meh. I mean, watchable but no better than if it had been on TV, where I could have at least paused it, and I didn't really think much of them at all.

I honestly don't think I'd watch those movies ever again, I don't think if it cost me more than literally pocket change that I'd bother, and I don't think the cinema added anything over just watching at home.

And then, at home, I have a projector with a humongous white-screen, black-out curtains, air-con (unusual for the UK but we've had a good summer this year!). I have good personal headphones or a sound system, I can eat and drink what I like, pause when I need, replay, put on subtitles, I get zero adverts, nobody stepping over me, no whispering behind me, and I can turn off the movie when I get bored.

The only "advantage" - seeing movies slightly earlier. Which is just silly, when I have huge libraries available to me that I'm already paying for and could easily suffer the "wait" of them flopping and being available for free or cheaper on Netflix, or Amazon, or Google Play, or whatever...

I don't get the cinema business model any more. I don't see how they operate or profit.

And my own money is better spent on a huge white-screen, a decent projector and hell, setting up in the garden of an evening and inviting mates around.

Re: Marketing Firm

[LynnwoodRooster]

At least three. I subscribe to this. It's actually a good deal. Movies are cheaper, and if you don't use your free ticket, it rolls over to the next month, and continues. There's been a few months where there was nothing I wanted to see - and I didn't go. The next month, I saw three free movies by using the unused previous tickets. Essentially, with AMC I agree to buy 1 ticket a month at $8.95, and can buy two a month at that price if I want. I can use that ticket at any time in the future - that month, the next month, the next year.