Moviepass and its Impact on the Box Office

[Barnack]

17 minutes ago, TwoMisfits said:

Still trying to just get bigger and buy more stuff...

http://www.indiewire.com/2018/04/moviepass-buys-moviefone-subscribers-rotten-tomatoes-1201949059/

 

 

Discounted-ticket subscription service MoviePass acquired ticket-buying app and website Moviefone in a $23 million deal.

the purchase consists of $1 million cash

[Rumpot]

End is near... http://variety.com/2018/film/news/moviepass-mitch-lowe-1202756923/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[WrathOfHan]

The quarterly sub was just a teaser. 

[The Panda]

I like how they say MP will be profitable by 2019 without giving any plan on how to get there.

 

They mentioned economies of scale, but I’m not sure if they’re going to reach a cost minimizing point (which would have to assume after certain levels of sub numbers they could get auxiliary theater revenue and reduced theater prices.  Which imo, is unlikely to happen)

 

They’ve bled 150m already this year, as a relatively small company.  They have maybe a year, at most, to figure out a way to shrink these net losses.

Edited April 18, 2018 by Critically Acclaimed Panda

[YLF]

I hope this lasts until the end of 2019. lol Don't you guys think something else will come from it anyway? The company that owns a theater chain in the UK has a similar model except solely for their chain of theaters - its 20 pounds per month. They bought regal and they have a very similar model to what moviepass is trying to do. I believe you can see an unlimited amount of movies(and its not limited to how many per day), you get to see advanced screenings of movies(moviepass has started to do this), and I believe you still have to pay premium price for IMAX, etc... 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2018 by YLF

[Barnack]

8 minutes ago, YLF said:

I hope this lasts until the end of 2019. lol Don't you guys think something else will come from it anyway? The company that owns a theater chain in the UK has a similar model except solely for their chain of theaters - its 20 pounds per month.

Maybe but maybe not, maybe MoviePass will make it hard to have something that make sense like that 28-30$ a month type of deal, because of them, we already had MoviePass before at a price point that work the only thing they did recently was lowering the price.

[Captain Craig]

My wife just got me MoviePass for my birthday two weeks ago. 

 

Didn't it originally start out at $20 a month? Then they slashed it to $12 or $10, then $8?

It's an idea that if it can survive and then slowly start to re-increase their monthly rate that it can begin recouping losses or at least slow the bleeding. 

 

Perhaps if there were a way to creat a tiered system or options beyond monthly or yearly. Quarterly perhaps or 1/2 year subscriptions as options with varied rates at each tier. 

[filmlover]

I'm just gonna enjoy it while it lasts (which clearly isn't much longer):

 

https://news.avclub.com/holy-crap-moviepass-is-losing-a-lot-of-money-1825367492

[AniNate]

Pretty sure I've already recouped my investment. Anything else is gravy.

[aabattery]

 

[AniNate]

So he was basically a for profit DeviantArtist

[Rumpot]

Moviepass sold shares again at a huge discount with warrants (buy one get one free). The stock tanked 45% and the day is young. Even if it closes they will only be able to get $30M heading into infinity war/summer and all the money from those yearlong subs is now even worse because it's all gone they aren't even getting monthly $8 from them.  They are done.  My guess is they will immediately make it so you can only see 4 movies a month or some other limitation.  But yeah..this fiasco is about finished

[filmlover]

14 hours ago, aabattery said:

 

[ChrisTelclear]

On 4/18/2018 at 1:25 PM, Captain Craig said:

My wife just got me MoviePass for my birthday two weeks ago. 

 

Didn't it originally start out at $20 a month? Then they slashed it to $12 or $10, then $8?

It's an idea that if it can survive and then slowly start to re-increase their monthly rate that it can begin recouping losses or at least slow the bleeding. 

 

Perhaps if there were a way to creat a tiered system or options beyond monthly or yearly. Quarterly perhaps or 1/2 year subscriptions as options with varied rates at each tier. 

This is always what I thought the plan was, get a couple million users hooked, then start to increase the price incrementally. This will impact the monthly users first of course because they aren't locked in, but anyone on expiring subscriptions will get the increase as soon as their time is up.

 

Very few people quit Netflix when they started to raise their prices, and I'll wager that tons won't quit this either.  The only question is when does it reach a point where you're making money. 

 

They could just restrict the number of movies for the base price, then offer more expensive plans for the really die hards. But actually it would be better to just hike the price on existing users.

[Avatree]

On 4/18/2018 at 5:53 PM, YLF said:

I hope this lasts until the end of 2019. lol Don't you guys think something else will come from it anyway? The company that owns a theater chain in the UK has a similar model except solely for their chain of theaters - its 20 pounds per month. They bought regal and they have a very similar model to what moviepass is trying to do. I believe you can see an unlimited amount of movies(and its not limited to how many per day), you get to see advanced screenings of movies(moviepass has started to do this), and I believe you still have to pay premium price for IMAX, etc... 

 

 

We have three main multiplex chains in the UK. Cineworld (82 cinemas), Vue (87 cinemas), and Odeon (122 cinemas).

 

Cineworld introduced the Unlimited scheme about 10 years ago. It has grown over time and now has really taken off and has been a runaway success for Cineworld. It's clearly more profitable for them, to have people on the subscriptions rather than buying individual tickets. Which seems counter-intuitive - the monthly sub fee is around 1.5x an adult ticket price. 

 

Cineworld Unlimited is like Moviepass except it's run by the cinema itself, so it's not a case of a third party obtaining a ticket from somewhere for you. There is no loss when a ticket is "bought". Also I think Moviepass has some restrictions, Unlimited has none.

 

Odeon (the biggest chain in UK) last year copied their idea and brought in their own scheme called Limitless. I imagine Vue will do the same in due course.

 

The idea behind moviepass has been proven to work in the UK. I believe rest of Europe does it too. It's just a matter of the service providers selling the scheme themselves.

 

Subscriptions are clearly the way forward for repeat consumers. People who listen to a lot of music probably pay £10/month for Spotify, rather than buying several albums every month. But albums are still sold to people who aren't that interested in keeping up with music, to people who just interested in a few albums each year. 

Same goes for Netflix... it's not for people who watch a movie every now and then, but if you regularly watch films at home it's the go-to option for you. Same goes for cinemas.

 

I would bet money on you guys in the US to start seeing this being done by Regal in the next few years - which was bought by the UK's Cineworld only a few weeks ago.

 

And, at which point, Moviepass will be made extinct and we won't even be having this conversation.  

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2018 by Trease is the Word

[YLF]

5 hours ago, Trease is the Word said:

We have three main multiplex chains in the UK. Cineworld (82 cinemas), Vue (87 cinemas), and Odeon (122 cinemas).

 

Cineworld introduced the Unlimited scheme about 10 years ago. It has grown over time and now has really taken off and has been a runaway success for Cineworld. It's clearly more profitable for them, to have people on the subscriptions rather than buying individual tickets. Which seems counter-intuitive - the monthly sub fee is around 1.5x an adult ticket price. 

 

Cineworld Unlimited is like Moviepass except it's run by the cinema itself, so it's not a case of a third party obtaining a ticket from somewhere for you. There is no loss when a ticket is "bought". Also I think Moviepass has some restrictions, Unlimited has none.

 

Odeon (the biggest chain in UK) last year copied their idea and brought in their own scheme called Limitless. I imagine Vue will do the same in due course.

 

The idea behind moviepass has been proven to work in the UK. I believe rest of Europe does it too. It's just a matter of the service providers selling the scheme themselves.

 

Subscriptions are clearly the way forward for repeat consumers. People who listen to a lot of music probably pay £10/month for Spotify, rather than buying several albums every month. But albums are still sold to people who aren't that interested in keeping up with music, to people who just interested in a few albums each year. 

Same goes for Netflix... it's not for people who watch a movie every now and then, but if you regularly watch films at home it's the go-to option for you. Same goes for cinemas.

 

I would bet money on you guys in the US to start seeing this being done by Regal in the next few years - which was bought by the UK's Cineworld only a few weeks ago.

 

And, at which point, Moviepass will be made extinct and we won't even be having this conversation.  

 

 

 

How does it work for premium showings? Like Imax, dolby, or 4dx. Do the people that have a subscription get a discount on those tickets or is that included in the subscription?

[MovieMan89]

On 4/18/2018 at 7:41 AM, Critically Acclaimed Panda said:

I like how they say MP will be profitable by 2019 without giving any plan on how to get there.

 

They mentioned economies of scale, but I’m not sure if they’re going to reach a cost minimizing point (which would have to assume after certain levels of sub numbers they could get auxiliary theater revenue and reduced theater prices.  Which imo, is unlikely to happen)

 

They’ve bled 150m already this year, as a relatively small company.  They have maybe a year, at most, to figure out a way to shrink these net losses.

They need some kind of actual marketing for the service if they really hope to make their market penetration strategy work. They need to get a huge number of subscribers before they have the bargaining power to make a profit the way they think they will, and even with the low price they don't have enough visibility to grow their base to that scale. There needs to be more awareness for it not solely dependent on word of mouth. But of course where does the money come from for marketing when they've already lost $150 mil? So I guess therein lies the issue. They also need to settle on a sub plan, and stick with it. These constantly in flux sub plans that change by the week are impossible to really spread word of mouth about. Not like I can pitch friends the plan I have, that doesn't exist right now. 

[IronJimbo]

On 19/04/2018 at 2:16 AM, aabattery said:

 

disney ruins everything

[Porthos]

27 minutes ago, IronJimbo said:

disney ruins everything

You'd better hope not. 

[IronJimbo]

4 minutes ago, Porthos said:

You'd better hope not. 

not funny man.. not funny