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

Marketing Firm

[spire3661]

Its pretty clear MoviePass is jsut a marketing firm looking to get picked up by a big company. They have no plan, no warchest, nothing. All everyone has to do is wait them out and they can pick it up for pennies on the dollar if they want it. MoviePass is done.

Re:Marketing Firm

[Opportunist]

Well, that's basically what happens now. Welcome to the Dutch Auction for Moviepass, make your offer when you run out of nerves.

Re: Marketing Firm

[phantomfive]

It seems reasonable, if they can get people (who wouldn't normally go) into a theater to see a less popular movie at a discount, then basically everyone benefits. The "any movie" thing was just a hook to get people in, before scaling back and hoping people will stay. Eventually they WILL be able to reduce service levels to a point where they are profitable, the only question is if there will be enough customers who want to stay at that low level.

Re:Marketing Firm

[markdavis]

>Its pretty clear MoviePass is jsut a marketing firm"

Well duh, what else could turn "We were stupid and now going bankrupt and need more money quickly before we die so we are going to raise prices and put even more limitations on what you can watch and how often you can use our services" into:

'MoviePass' statement claims these changes are being made "to enhance discovery, and to drive attendance to smaller films and bolster the independent film community."'

Re: Marketing Firm

[ShanghaiBill]

Their business model *DEPENDS* on people paying a monthly subscription and then not using it.

Their CURRENT business model depends on that. But that is not the only possible business model.

If people go see movies that they otherwise would not have seen, because the marginal cost is $0, then more money is on the table. With their current business model, the theaters capture this extra money, not MoviePass. But it may make sense for a theater chain, or consortium of chains, to buy them out and use MoviePass to make movie theaters more like Netflix: All you can watch for one flat price.

The question is, how do they get there from here.

Re: Marketing Firm

[Gavagai80]

Without MoviePass, I'll average 3-5 movies a year which I'll go to on the discount days spending $15-$25 total. With MoviePass, I'll see 3 a month (got their 3 a month plan which is $8 but I'd go up to maybe $12 for it). I'd still go for this if they told me I can't see movies until they've been out for a month and I can only go on weekdays when the theater is empty (heck, I'd appreciate an app that can tell me a theater is going to be nice and empty). I don't see how it can fail to be profitable for theaters to sign up people like me to such plans.

The unlimited plans may not be workable (though if they restrict the viewing times enough it seems like it could be profitable to theaters), but there's certainly profit to be made with a carefully designed movie subscription plan.

Re: Marketing Firm

[jlv]

But it may make sense for a theater chain, or consortium of chains, to buy them out

Why buy out MoviePass? They just had a concept that can be easily duplicated. And it already has been: AMC added it's own one price per month subscription service.

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.

Re: Marketing Firm

[Kjella]

Because it can't be easily duplicated. Everyone knows about MoviePass. It has enormous name recognition. "JlvPass" has none.

But the cinema goers do know the cinema they're going to, they've gone there before MoviePass. They're still going there with MoviePass. They know the selection of movies, screens, sound, seating, location, parking, concessions, pretty much the entire business proposition. And the cinema got the best possible advertising space possible in-house and can give it exclusive perks they wouldn't give anyone else. Granted, it's always possible that some other company external to the cinema business will think they can turn an audience into profit but I'd be very worried that the cinema chains roll their own and price MoviePass out of the market. And even if they're big I doubt they got much leverage, most people want to go to the local cinema so if they stop working with a chain I think most subscribers would rather leave than go to the other cinema across town to save a buck or two.

Re: Marketing Firm

[Rhipf]

Netflix is also "just a concept". Do you really think you can create a new Netflix?

Maybe I can't personally but I think some others might.

Hulu
CraveTV
HBO Now
Amazon Prime
etc.

Re: Marketing Firm

[DrXym]

The stupidest thing about the business model is that cinema chains can do their own subscription service or some other model of admission and keep all the money to themselves. There is no incentive for chains or studios to support MoviePass.

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.

We're losing money on each customer....

[EvilSS]

...but we'll make it up in volume!

Re:Why is this on Slashdot?

[faedle]

Well, for starters, movie nerds are still "nerds". And in many ways, MoviePass is "stuff that matters" in the sense that it has caused disruption to the movie theater inudstry (see: AMC's grumblings about this).

It's a bit more than "just a way of buying tickets." If you've been paying attention, it's essentially started as an "unlimited" movie service like Netflix, but the difference is you watch movies in meatspace. It was a novel idea, it was ridiculous dot.com style business modeling, and it dealt with something a lot of nerds are passionate about (movies). So, yes, it fits on Slashdot.

So

[BitztreamNotARealNam]

How's life in the hypocrite lane?