Weak-end Thread | Hitman's Bodyguard 21.6M; Annabelle 15.5M; Logan Lucky 8M; Dunkirk 6.7M | Wonder Woman beats Spider-Man and is now at 404M

[Barnack]

1 minute ago, TwoMisfits said:

Since it's annoying as sin to have to wait until you are at the theater to buy the ticket, it should not really affect blockbuster movies until near the mid-to-end point of their runs and it should probably not help crappy movies, since most people don't feel like the time waste.

It is still a relatively small minority that buy ticket before going in theatre (specially theatre with atm style service with no lines make no sense to buy ticket in advance outside the very first days of giant blockbuster)

[TwoMisfits]

2 minutes ago, Barnack said:

It is still a relatively small minority that buy ticket before going in theatre (specially theatre with atm style service with no lines make no sense to buy ticket in advance outside the very first days of giant blockbuster)

That's b/c the entire middle of the country doesn't have reserved seating...all you need to do is change that, and presales would skyrocket everywhere...til there's reserved seating, there's no incentive to prebook...

 

I mean, this effectively makes seats cost different amounts of money...the worst seats, the ones available same day, will be cheaper as they probably should be...

[Mojoguy]

Theaters can EASILY block moviepass by not accepting MasterCard credit cards as payment.

[grim22]

2 minutes ago, Mojoguy said:

Theaters can EASILY block moviepass by not accepting MasterCard credit cards as payment.

 

That would be extremely foolish, because it isn't just Moviepass who use Mastercard. My default cards with both AMC and Regal is a Mastercard, would you want to inconvenience a huge segment of the population to block one company?

[aabattery]

1 minute ago, grim22 said:

 

That would be extremely foolish, because it isn't just Moviepass who use Mastercard. My default cards with both AMC and Regal is a Mastercard, would you want to inconvenience a huge segment of the population to block one company?

 

Yeah, to say that it would be an idiotic move would be an understatement. It'd be like cutting off your own leg to cure a stubbed toe.

[Nova]

10 minutes ago, Barnack said:

It is obviously an unsustainable model, that will hurt studio/theater chain a lot, it devalue all the catalogue, theatrical windows and all that follow.

 

Moviepass will not sustain that deal and will ask for a bulk price, there is a reason theater chain are trying to block that system, they are not stupid if they would think movie pass would buy 90$ of tickets for 10$ for decades they would love it, they just know that it make no sense. (And from a studio point of view it destroy all the following windows, could still be a nice deal if it would be a realistic one but it is not). It would be much cheaper for the industry to just have everyone paying 10$ a month on netflix and saving all the cost....

 

 

AMC is the only one trying to block it and that's only because they want to roll out their own plan and are just mad that MoviePass came out first. Theaters in the states make the majority of their money from concessions anyways...not from the price of the ticket. So theoretically, this is in the theaters best interest. If people are paying a fixed price they're more likely to go out to the theater and then because they're paying so little for a ticket ($10 a month) they'll buy concessions. Maybe not every single time but more people at the theater means more money at the concessions. And the studio is getting paid anyways.

 

A studio will not survive with a $10 subscription plan with Netflix. 

 

Like subscription plans work in other countries. The question is whether MoviePass can make it. It might fail because they're betting on a ton of people signing up for it which may not happen but in general a subscription plan in itself from theater chains would not fail and is most likely the direction in which the industry is heading. Which like I said is a good thing for it. 

[TwoMisfits]

1 minute ago, Mojoguy said:

Theaters can EASILY block moviepass by not accepting MasterCard credit cards as payment.

Right...and then you'd have the "haves" and the "have not" theaters...it's very hard to turn that down if you are not part of a chain when you are getting full price...and it's very hard to be the chain that won't take Mastercards if the others do...you could very well put half your theaters out of business as everyone adjusts...I mean locally here, since only one theater had cheap Tuesday (until the AMC deal), what theater do you think had full sell outs for almost all shows on Tuesday?  I'm betting that theater owner makes more concession sales on that Tuesday than he/she does on a weekend day...

[Nova]

7 minutes ago, Mojoguy said:

Theaters can EASILY block moviepass by not accepting MasterCard credit cards as payment.

So when regular folks who do not have MoviePass and only have MasterCard want to go to your theater....

[grim22]

4 minutes ago, Nova said:

AMC is the only one trying to block it and that's only because they want to roll out their own plan and are just mad that MoviePass came out first.

 

More than this, they are angry that Moviepass is setting the expectation as 10$ a month. I am sure AMC was aiming for 20-25$ or so as a base price for their offering, but now the public baseline is 10$. Its like when itunes said the price of a song was 99 cents so everyone else could not go higher.

[Barnack]

15 minutes ago, Nova said:

AMC is the only one trying to block it and that's only because they want to roll out their own plan and are just mad that MoviePass came out first. Theaters in the states make the majority of their money from concessions anyways...not from the price of the ticket. So theoretically, this is in the theaters best interest. If people are paying a fixed price they're more likely to go out to the theater and then because they're paying so little for a ticket ($10 a month) they'll buy concessions. Maybe not every single time but more people at the theater means more money at the concessions. And the studio is getting paid anyways.

 

A studio will not survive with a $10 subscription plan with Netflix. 

 

Like subscription plans work in other countries. The question is whether MoviePass can make it. It might fail because they're betting on a ton of people signing up for it which may not happen but in general a subscription plan in itself from theater chains would not fail and is most likely the direction in which the industry is heading. Which like I said is a good thing for it. 

That is mostly a common myth (that was going hands and hands with the other myth that theater keep only 10-20% of the ticket sales the first weekend and were a popcorn business):

 

They are often public traded company, and all the revenue/expense for theatre are all in the open to check (how much they keep from tickets sales, etc..) and not something we need Internet blogs to know:

http://investor.amctheatres.com/Cache/1001226518.PDF?O=PDF&T=&Y=&D=&FID=1001226518&iid=4171292

The majority of the money for theatres is from tickets, few people buy that crazy expensive food specially those who would go in theater all the time to actually see movies with a pass and not like an rare event/going out type of experience:

 

Admissions $ 761.4

Food and beverage 374.1

 

Film exhibition costs 379.8

Food and beverage costs 62.1

 

They have much better margin on food and beverage but in absolute money it is tickets.

 

The studio and theater would be ok with it if it was a sustainable plan, but like you said 10$ a month is not enough and obviously the company loosing money everytime you buy tickets will change that over time, they will ask for a bulk price to theater chains, it is inevitable.

 

It is completely unsustainable and make possible 25-50$ a month type of plan now more difficult to do.

Edited August 20, 2017 by Barnack

[Nova]

1 minute ago, grim22 said:

 

More than this, they are angry that Moviepass is setting the expectation as 10$ a month. I am sure AMC was aiming for 20-25$ or so as a base price for their offering, but now the public baseline is 10$. Its like when itunes said the price of a song was 99 cents so everyone else could not go higher.

Yup. I should have included that in my response. They're afraid that if it fails, the expectation will have already been set. But I think they're trapped because even if somehow someway they find a way to get out (I don't know how they could) most areas have more than one chain around. Or they don't have an AMC at all. 

[Mojoguy]

So would moviepass boost movie attendance and are boxoffice followers going to call that cheating?

[dxmatrixdt]

2 hours ago, That Floating Guy said:

 

Good taste but #casual taste.  he needs to see more arthouse flicks like Transformers: The Last Knight and he better be anticipating that foreign movie Justice League.

I thought TLK was arthouse

[Barnack]

3 minutes ago, Nova said:

Yup. I should have included that in my response. They're afraid that if it fails, the expectation will have already been set. But I think they're trapped because even if somehow someway they find a way to get out (I don't know how they could) most areas have more than one chain around. Or they don't have an AMC at all. 

They are affraid if it succeed (large amount of people now used to buy 10$ a month), now what ?

 

Moviepass ask them for a rebate by tickets, they bring a lot of business, etc... and those people would never go back to buying ticket over 10$ for just a movie now they are used to a whole month a that price, so what can the theater chains do except accepting giving them a rebate ?

[cannastop]

1 minute ago, Mojoguy said:

So would moviepass boost movie attendance and are boxoffice followers going to call that cheating?

We don't have hard data on attendance anyways, so who knows?

[La Binoche]

I liked Ingrid Goes West better than I expected. It's not perfect and loses steam at the end but Aubrey Plaza is damn talented and Elizabeth Olsen is on a roll. Curious to see how it performs as it goes wide (if it goes wider). 

[Nova]

8 minutes ago, Barnack said:

That is a myth:

http://investor.amctheatres.com/Cache/1001226518.PDF?O=PDF&T=&Y=&D=&FID=1001226518&iid=4171292

The majority of the money is from tickets

Admissions $ 761.4

Food and beverage 374.1

 

Film exhibition costs 379.8

Food and beverage costs 62.1

 

They have much better margin on food and beverage but in absolute money it is tickets.

 

The studio and theater would be ok with it if it was a sustainable plan, but like you said 10$ a month is not enough and obviously the company loosing money everytime you buy tickets will change that over time, they will ask for a bulk price to theater chains, it is inevitable.

 

It is completely unsustainable and make possible 25-50$ a month type of plan now more difficult to do.

You've picked one of the busiest quarters for the film industry in which the box office was booming. But when the box office isn't booming, a theater survives off of its concessions. Which is what happened in the last quarter of 2015 and what's happening in the month of August when ticket sales are abysmal: 

On Tuesday, AMC Entertainment reportedfourth quarter adjusted earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street estimates. 

But admissions revenue, or money paid for movie tickets, actually declined 4.5% over the prior year as both ticket prices and attendance fell. And in a statement, AMC CEO Gerry Lopez admitted that the movies released during the quarter weren't all that great, calling it a "lackluster film slate."

So where did the company make money? Food.

 

[That One Girl]

I'll be seeing Step tomorrow.  We'll see if it dethrones Alien: Covenant and end up as my 23rd favorite movie of the year, know you're all anticipating this reveal

[Nova]

5 minutes ago, Barnack said:

They are affraid if it succeed (large amount of people now used to buy 10$ a month), now what ?

 

Moviepass ask them for a rebate by tickets, they bring a lot of business, etc... and those people would never go back to buying ticket over 10$ for just a movie now they are used to a whole month a that price, so what can the theater chains do except accepting giving them a rebate ?

They can create their own subscription plan. 

 

[TwoMisfits]

Most people go to the movies 10-12/year and when they go, they tend to go for a discount to most of those movies...these are the folks you are trying to get into your plan.  It doesn't matter if they fill up empty seats and go 15-20 times/year once they subscribe b/c they are filling unsold seats anyway.

 

I mean, it's 8 months into the year and I've gone to 7 movies...I'll probably see Jedi, Justice League, maybe Thor, Murder on the Orient Express, It (if it's cheap enough), and some animated movie maybe...so, that's 13 movies total, and I'm in to movies...and I'll see less if I don't discount them...

 

If there was a family plan, I'd probably jump on the program...but it seems annoying to have to log in and out of an app 6 times at a theater to do all this one at a time...and I hate seeing movies solo...so I'm not in...yet...although someone may gift me this as my birthday approaches, and then I'll have to drag folks in with me to movies:)...that'd probably be a win-win for me and the theaters and Moviepass:)...